These best friend experts are working to help others with their friendships

By Brelaun Douglas via SWNS

Meet the best friends for over 30 years who've made it their mission to help others with their own friendships.  

Matt Ritter and Aaron Karo, both 43, have been best friends since the second grade.

The Los Angles-based friendship experts were inspired to start their podcast, “Man of the Year,” last November after noticing that people, men especially, were struggling with their friendships.

“Men are in a friendship recession,” Aaron said.

“Americans have less friends than ever before, especially men. We are really struggling.”

Matt added: “There’s been a lot of studies that have come out recently talking about what is the number one factor in longevity.

“It’s not how much money you make, it’s not your diet, it’s not how many times you go to the gym. It’s the health of your friendships.

“It actually enhances and increases your lifespan to have a good quality network of friends.”

For the past 20 years, the two along with their other seven best friends they’ve had since fourth grade meet up for “the world’s greatest friendship tradition.”

“Every year on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving we all fly in from wherever we are and we have dinner at Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn and vote on which friend had the best year,” Aaron said.

“That friend wins our giant man of the year trophy."

They said having traditions like these are a great way to keep existing friendships going.

“We don’t expect everybody to go around and having a huge dinner with a huge trophy,” Matt said.

Aaron added: “If you have a group of friends that you don’t get to see that often, you need to put something on the calendar that reoccurs.

“It can be wine night, or a book club or going to the driving range. You need something that happens regularly. Building traditions is a great key to activating your existing relationships.”

Other tips they recommend for existing friendships include using the group chat and taking advantage of your own birthday.

“When Facebook or Instagram shows you a picture from seven years ago, take that picture and send it to everybody in the group, everybody that’s in that picture,” Aaron said.

He added: “Always celebrate your birthday. It is a great excuse to reach out to a couple of friends and ask them to get a drink.

“No one’s going to say no if it’s your birthday. Use your birthday as a chance to catch up.”

For people looking to make new friends, their number one tip is to “find your third place.”

“Your first place is home, your second place is work, your third place is anywhere else you go to socialize,” Aaron explained.

“That can be a religious institution, it can be a pool hall, it could be the dog park, it could be the gym.

“Find [your] third place and embrace consistency, meaning you’re going to go to your third place at the same time every week. In doing that you end up seeing familiar faces and that’s the first step in making new friends.”

Other tips for making new friends include wearing “statement” shirts with your alma mater or favorite sports team to strike up conversations and using friends you already have.

“A really underserved resource for making new friends is existing friends,” Aaron said.

Matt added: “I’ve basically stolen all of Aaron’s friends. When I moved out here, I realized, ‘Oh, I don’t know anybody, but I know Aaron.’

“People don’t realize the easiest and best resource to make new friends are people that have already been vetted by your friends that probably share a lot of your interests.”

They said now is the perfect time to make new friends because “friendship cuffing season is upon us.”

“Friendship cuffing season is when spring hits and it’s nice out and there are a lot more activities,” Matt said.

“You want to find somebody in advance of that so that you have somebody to do all of these things with. You don’t want to be the person throwing a frisbee to themselves at the park.

“You have now until Memorial Day.”

They said an important part of this process is assessing your social fitness.

“We want to push this concept of social fitness, which is taking stock of your relationships, specifically your friendships,” Aaron said.

“Do you have people you can call in a clutch? Do you have people you can call when you need to blow off some steam? Are there people that can call you for advice and for help?

“We think this is the first step in figuring out where you may be deficient in your friendships and where you might have some potential to build new ones."

Matt added: “A lot of us [men] were brought up to not really be vulnerable in our relationships with other men and that’s something we’re trying to counteract with this idea of social fitness.

“We coined this phrase that ‘thank you is a gateway emotion.’ We know that it’s hard for men to say I love you to other men so we’re trying to start small, we’re not trying to change your life all at once.

“[It] is really rewarding for us to see people emailing us and saying, ‘hey thank you for the podcast, I actually reached out to an old friend I hadn’t talked to in 10 years.’”

Matt and Aaron said at the end of the day, friendship really boils down to two words.

“Friendship really is just showing up,” Matt said.

Aaron added: “And that’s in the tough times and the good times.

“People ask, 'how do you define friendship?' Showing up.”