Kelly Marin and Andrew McCarthy discussing his new book, Who Needs Friends? as a part of the James Patterson Honors Program speaker series.
MARY HALEY / THE QUADRANGLE
Mary Haley, Senior Writer
Actor, director and travel writer Andrew McCarthy visited Manhattan University (MU) to discuss his new book, “Who Needs Friends: An Unscientific Examination of Male Friendship Across America,” offering students a candid look at male intimacy, loneliness and the power of simply showing up for one another.
Kelly Marin, Ph.D., chair of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department and the moderator for the event, introduced McCarthy as a multi-hyphenate artist – known for cult-classic films like “Pretty in Pink,” “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “Mannequin” and “Weekend at Bernie’s,” as well as for his award-winning travel writing and multiple New York Times bestsellers. McCarthy visited MU on the official publication day of his new book that reflects on a cross-country trip.
The seed of “Who Needs Friends” was planted for McCarthy during a conversation with his son, Sam. Sam, after telling a funny story about his friends, suddenly looked up and observed that his father didn’t really have friends. McCarthy initially defended himself, explaining that he had friends, but he just didn’t see them. The comment from his son still lingered, and it inspired a 10 thousand mile, 22 state road trip across America to reconnect with friends he hadn’t seen in years.
Although the reasoning for McCarthy’s journey was to reconnect with his own friends, what he found along the way were conversations with strangers that led to a fascination with how men relate to one another.
“I would just chat with [strangers],” McCarthy said. “I wasn’t interviewing people. I was just an interested person in the topic. I would share about my own [experiences], and I was amazed with how open people were… a lot of [people] sort of discovered things about themselves and the place friendship had in their lives, in a way they had never thought about before.”
McCarthy said these conversations revealed a pattern for many men; one where intimacy is tangled up with fear – fear of being perceived as weak, vulnerable or sexually suggestive. Saying “I love you” to another man, he admitted, has long been difficult for him, even as his friend began using the phrase freely at the end of phone calls.
“There’s an issue of intimacy,” McCarthy said. Intimacy can be construed as vulnerability, and vulnerability is very close to weakness.”
However, McCarthy also shared examples of long-term friendships that demonstrated a different dynamic. He described meeting two men in their 70s who had been friends for decades and had recently begun expressing affection more openly. McCarthy recalled one of the friends telling him “I say ‘I love you’ to my wife… why can’t I say it to my best friend?”
McCarthy contrasted these stories of connection with the isolation and loneliness he also observed, especially among men who never developed or maintained such intimate bonds. He suggested that the culture equips many men poorly for vulnerability and emotional honesty, leaving them wary of exactly the kind of closeness they most need. Marin affirmed that observation.
“That really does come through, even in the men that you meet and talk to,” Marin said. “It’s that kind of larger cultural script of what’s it, what’s appropriate, what’s not and how are other people going to perceive it… I think that’s real. I see that in the research as well. So what I think you experienced aligns with that.”
As a travel writer, McCarthy has learned a lot about life through his projects outside of acting. He explained how travel has been the university of his life. McCarthy described himself as a terrible student, and recalled to the crowd how he was kicked out of college after two years and didn’t seriously start reading books until his 30s. His education came instead from traveling the world alone after the fame he experienced in the years past. After these travels, he would write down experiences he had, and instead of finding a diary entry, he would find a story.
“I would just write stories. And then I had no desire to do anything with it for, like, 10 years, until I did,” McCarthy said. “I met an editor, and I said, ‘you should let me write for your magazine,’ and he said, ‘Well, you’re an actor, dude,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, but I know how to tell a story. That’s what I do for a living,’ And he thought that was a good answer.”
Presenting at a college, filled with younger audiences who are forming the friendships that McCarthy spent miles and months observing, when the conversation turned to students in the audience—many of whom are likely forming friendships that could last decades—McCarthy suggested that young people may already understand friendship more deeply than older adults give them credit for. He pointed to the 1980s films he starred in, like “St. Elmo’s Fire,” noting that those movies took young people seriously and often centered friendship rather than romance. Watching young people like his own children, he sees that their investment in friends is profound and real, and it is not to be dismissed as being immature or temporary.
“There was something in the act of showing up that, in doing so, I would then [say to the friends] ‘You’re important to me. You were really profound in my life, and it mattered, and I need to see you again and I’m old enough to not feel ashamed and scared by that,” McCarthy said.
Michele Saracino, Ph.D., professor of religious studies and director of the James Patterson Honors program, planned this event and wrote to The Quadrangle about what this event meant for the university.
“The James Patterson Speaker Series event featuring actor, director, writer Andrew McCarthy was outstanding.” Saracino wrote. “Professor Kelly Marin struck exactly the right tone with her questions about his new book on male friendship. It was especially gratifying to see so many alumni and community members in attendance. Brother Robert Berger’s remarks during the Q&A – reflecting on McCarthy’s performance in ‘Heaven Help Us’ – were a highlight of the evening. It was a great night to be a Jasper.”