Local ‘Men’s Circle’ Seeks To Build Community, Vulnerability Among Males

“America’s Young Men Are Falling Even Further Behind.”

So proclaims a recent Wall Street Journal article, exploring how young men have become statistically less likely than their female contemporaries to pursue higher education, enter the workforce, or move out of their parents’ homes. Cited causes range from shifting societal norms and gender roles to the social disconnect wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Cited effects include more political and social divergence between young men and young women, and a mounting loneliness epidemic among males in general.

A few years ago, Traverse City entrepreneur Loghan Call found himself grappling with his own intense loneliness. “I’m somebody who has had a lot of struggles with finding community and making close friends, and with just not having the types of bonds and connections to other men that I’ve wanted,” he says.

Desperate for connection, Call signed up for a men’s retreat weekend with Sacred Sons, an organization with a mission of “strengthening men’s mental, physical, and spiritual health.” He was so moved by the experience that he decided to bring a similar concept to northern Michigan. Traverse City Men’s Circle was born.

Described on Call’s website as a “safe, facilitated space for processing, healing, and transformation,” TC Men’s Circle seeks to help local men “connect in ways that are virtually impossible to find elsewhere.” The group meets on the first and third Mondays of the month; any man over the age of 18 is welcome to attend.

“It really runs the gamut,” Call says, when asked what a typical Men’s Circle discussion looks like. “One of the things I’ve realized is that men have reached such a critical mass in terms of everything that they're holding, that if a safe ritual space is created and there's structure and framework that helps guide the conversation, most men actually open up rather quickly. That could be about issues in the workplace, relationships, sex and intimacy, trauma and mental health, society, culture as a whole…it really can be anything.”

Regardless of topic, Call says the goal is to break past the “surface level things” that tend to populate everyday social conversations.

“In the circle space, it’s everything below the surface,” he says. “It's all the things we don't normally have the opportunity or feel safe enough to talk about. For so long, the mentality among a lot of men has been that we put our armor on and say we’re fine and everything’s okay, even though internally it might be the exact opposite. With Men’s Circle, I wanted to create an opportunity to share all the things that most of us have been withholding for our entire lives.”

To learn more, The Ticker sat down with Call and four recurring Men’s Circle participants. The youngest, Noel Weeks, is a 35-year-old organic farmer. The oldest, Jeremy Meyering, is 54 and has a manufacturing background. Also at the table were Seth Gernot, 46, who works in nonprofit fundraising; and Josh Hart, 39, owner of Riley’s Candles.

Despite their differences, what the quartet say they had in common when they joined Men’s Circle was a desire to build community, forge deep male connections, and work through personal journeys of growth and healing.

“I moved to northern Michigan prior to COVID, went through a divorce, and decided I was done with corporate America, all around the same time,” Hart says. “I’d spent a lot of my time living in airplanes and hotels, and I just wanted more out of life than that. I wanted to build a community, and didn’t really know how to do that.”

Hart attended his first Men’s Circle meeting about two years ago, at Call’s invitation. “We sat on the floor and talked about feelings,” he laughs. “It was something I didn't know I needed in my life.”

Weeks says he came out of his first Men’s Circle meeting feeling “uncomfortable” and “freaked out,” anticipating he’d never return. “But then, the next day, I felt really good, and the day after that, I felt really good,” he says. “And then, when the next meeting came around, I was back, because I felt like it had given me an opportunity to really open up and connect with other men in a way that traditional society doesn’t always allow you to connect with men.”

Call says Men’s Circle meetings can often have “five decades of men” in attendance. One of the least represented demographics is men under the age of 25 – a shortfall he’s eager to address, especially given the trends covered in the Wall Street Journal article.

“It’s in my mind’s eye to reach out to Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) and put together a pilot program, where we can say to their students, ‘Hey, this is available and we’d love to have you.’”

Hart, who teaches an NMC course on entrepreneurship, thinks the message would resonate.

“That’s a class of a 18-25-year-olds, and my sense has been that almost everybody in there is taking the class more for getting to know the community and becoming a part of something than they are to start a business,” Hart says. “This generation that came of age during COVID, I think they’re craving to be a part of something so bad, and they don’t know how to do it.”

If there’s an obstacle to drawing younger people into the mix, Call thinks it’s likely the same stigma against emotional vulnerability that generations of men have internalized as part of traditional masculinity. For his part, though, Gernot is hopeful that seeing older guys be totally vulnerable in an environment like Men’s Circle could be precisely what a new generation needs to dispense with old, outmoded ideas about gender norms.

“Doing this work is really difficult for someone like me, who’s been putting up armor forever,” Gernot says. “But just seeing other people doing that work has been really encouraging. It’s helpful for me to see that, one day, I’m going to crack through all that armor, and then I'll do what I’ve been told never to do, which is cry in front of men and release my emotions. In doing that, I’m going to feel the best I’ve ever felt.”

Meyering concurs, praising Men's Circle as a way of “diversifying the narrative” around masculinity.

“There’s this idea of, ‘Oh, here is the way to be a man,’” he says. “But you know what? There are as many ways to be a man as there are men. And we should be able to choose what kind of men we want to be.”

Pictured, from left to right: Gernot, Call, Hart, Meyering, and Weeks.