[nhashem]

Yeah, I read Fight Club too, dude.

We could have a much deeper discussion on the evolution of society and how the gradual reduction of physical survival difficulty has eroded a lot of the male bonding development that used to exist. But a lot the OP was about difficulty making friends even when people had a lot of things in common, so I was sharing an anecdote on how a shared activity and commitment, even for a mostly trivial hobby, still led to what I considered good friendships.

You may consider bonding through my softball team "play time." I posit that it's better than not bonding at all, but if you really want to dismiss my friendships and suggest the only way to forge lifetime male bonding is to form an underground anarchist militia and make bombs out of soap, I'll take that under consideration.

[Apocryphon]

I wonder how he'd respond to a non-aggressive, benevolent shared purpose and struggle. How about a mainstream charitable organization that makes soaps out of bombs?

[rubashov]

Yeah, I wasn't contradicting you, dude. Maybe you'd make more friends if you chilled out.

[jessedhillon]

How are you not contradicting him? He said he made some great friends through casual sports, and you're saying that lifelong friendship cannot happen through casual sports. You are directly disagreeing with him about how deep his friendships are.

Based on nothing more than armchair psychology!

[nickzoic]

I dunno, maybe he's saying that if you take casual sports as seriously as the first guy evidently takes his casual sports, they count as a shared struggle, etc, etc.

[greedo]

Methinks "How To Win Friends and Influence People" hasn't made it to your reading list.

[xenophanes]

Or his goal in this discussion isn't to win friends and influence people.

Maybe he's trying to gain entertainment.

Just because someone isn't getting X now doesn't mean he doesn't know how to. Maybe he's after Y.

[pehrlich]

I read that as the "shared struggle and purpose" being the softball team..

[msellout]

Then what is 'play time' if softball qualifies as 'struggle and purpose'?

[infectoid]

Best troll ever. Love your work man.