The men who want friendships like women have

Pointon said the youngest man involved in the Men’s Table was 20 and the oldest was 93, but two out of three participants were aged from 45 to 65.

Michael Johnson, 37, recently joined the Surry Hills table after moving to Sydney from Queensland on his own.

As a musician, Johnson knows a few people in the arts industry, and is meeting new people through his work, but he was drawn to the idea of the Men’s Table.

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“I’ve moved quite a bit in my life, sometimes with partners and sometimes just solo, and I know that for my own mental health, I have to put in the work to meet people,” Johnson said. “It’s incredibly important, especially as I’ve never lived in Sydney before.”

Jonathan Tamayo, 44, a Filipino migrant who moved to Sydney in 2014, said most of his extended family was in Los Angeles.

He is married with a child and attends the Men’s Table in Castle Hill for support and friendship outside the home.

“There are things that I can only share with the missus, and there are things that I feel I could get more valuable insights on if I speak with men who are the same age, or who have more wealth of experience,” he said.

But even for those who live close to where they grew up, Pointon said it was common for men to lose contact with their friendship circles when they hit their 30s and 40s, and experienced isolation and disconnection as a result.

Pointon said the first table grew out of a business networking group when one member revealed that he was going through tough times.

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The group met for more than seven years before they decided to replicate the format, forming a not-for-profit organisation in 2019 and growing rapidly since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pointon said there were 138 groups nationally, compared with 62 this time last year. In NSW, there are 101 groups, up from 48, in the regions as well as across Sydney.

MensLine Australia: 1300 789 978

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