So…I guess I joined another cult

Mostly Kidding. Kinda

Of course the first cult being this whole FIRE/mustachian/ERE community or whatever. You know, the type of thing that when people hear about it they’re immediately revolted and think you’ve got indoctrinated into some extreme movement and worry about your kool-aid consumption. Anyways… joined another similar such group about a month ago. And it’s been great! Let’s dive in.

No shit, there I was; 6 weeks ago we were wandering around our new town’s Farmer’s Market with the kids in tow. Got them some popsicles, and my wife bought some fancy bread. Yum. 

Then we stumbled by some random booth with dude’s doing burpees, some of whom were wearing weighted vests. Immediately thought that the local crossfit box was out proselytizing, and tried to steer clear. Before I could, one of the guys looked over at us and asked if the kids wanted free face painting. Kids were like “Yayyyy I wanna be a dragon!!!” or some shit and I was like fuck. While the kids were pondering options, another guy said something like “you look like you’re in shape (of course I am), you should check us out. We’re a free mens workout group that meets around the town early in the morning, and we also do fun social stuff.” He handed me a flier as I made noncommittal noises, and off we went. 

Later, I looked at the flier. Not so much because of the workout thing, but the social aspect piqued my curiosity. 

If there’s one thing that’s lacking in my post-full time work/early retiredish life, it’s been the social. Like you, I’ve also read and heard all about the importance of social connection for happiness, longevity, emotional well being, cognitive something, blah blah blah. I’m pretty introverted by nature (or nurture, who fucking knows), and the regular social interaction I used to get at work was more than enough to satisfy such biological need. Especially since both my prior professions were heavy into group cohesion for survival and thus had a large social component. It was just normal to have long talks with co-workers about important life and existential shit, free from professional PC dogma. 

Contrary to that, without dedicated effort, my new lifestyle lacks regular social contact, much less anything that would lead to discussions about stuff that actually matters. After the first 6-8 months post work, I begrudgingly admitted that I had to be proactive about bringing social stuff into my life, since I no longer had work automatically doing it for me. Here’s what I did:

1. Started having coffee with friends. Surprise, surprise, all of my local peers are still working, and have busy schedules. This means I do this once every month or so. It’s still nice though.
2. Tried finding FI related local meetups. Even ran some. It was okeyish, but again most of these people were working, and lived far away. 
3. Went to FI events. Econome was okay, but the size was a bit too much for me. Camp Mustache was amazing, and the perfect size. I will absolutely do that again, and maybe try out a Camp FI….but I don’t see myself going to multiple of those a year. I know some people do, and when our kids get older, maybe I will. But right now the childcare logistics allow for 1 or 2 such events a year.
4. Continued to volunteer for my local trails maintenance group and at my kids school. This is fun, but all the other volunteers seem so rushed. I get it, they’re all juggling careers and everything else. Not a great social outlet.
5. Got a part time job. This is probably my #1 source of social interaction, which means I talk to a co-worker every other week or so.
6. Create space for random social interaction. You know how you run into people, and they sorta want to talk to you, but you’re busy so you exchange pleasantries and rush on to the next thing? Yeah, I noticed that I kept doing that even after leaving full-time work. I’ve got the time now to hang out, but the habit was hard to break. So I intentionally caught myself whenever I felt the need to rush off, and instead try to relax and get interested in whatever some random person is talking about. This has actually been pretty successful, and I’ve found myself talking to neighbors or people at the grocery store for like 20 minutes. 

All that’s been great, but if I were to create a spreadsheet to track my social interaction (like a true borderline fucking sociopath), all the above meant I was talking to people maybe once every other week. Definitely better than nothing, and enough to get by. But I still was missing that deeper social connection I’d been spoiled with at my prior jobs.

Which was a long way of explaining how I ended up regularly meeting a bunch of random dudes at a middle school parking lot at 5:30 AM to do sprints and pushups. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

After the farmers market, I looked at the flier. It was for the local chapter for a thing called ‘F3’. They had a bunch of locations in town, two of which were a couple minute bike ride from our new house. They had a rotating schedule of different workouts at various parks and schools six days a week, most of which run from 5:30am-6:15am. Workouts varied from runs, bodyweight stuff, cinder block parties, rucks, and even ultimate frisbee. Seemed ok, but what the hell is this F3 thing? The flier made it clear that everything was free, so of course I figured there was a catch. Thus began my googling. Turns out this quasi-cult F3 thing is a non-profit, and stands for: 

Fitness: it’s a workout group. That’s a given.

Fellowship: ok, it’s really a men’s group that uses working out as an excuse to get together.

Faith: Oh shit, this one almost got me. 

I respect people’s right to believe in whatever the hell they want so long as they don’t force it on anyone else. We’re about to get into some religious shit, so hang on. 

I was brought up harcore Roman Catholic. It was ok. There were some good things, and some less than good things. These days, if you were to find a label that best describes what I believe, it’d be something like spiritual agnostic and barely pantheist on a good day. 

Luckily for me, F3 really doesn’t give a shit about any one specific religion, or if you’re a member of one. The network/club/group asks that you believe you aren’t the center of the universe, and you believe in something greater than yourself. Guess I fit into that. I’ve known dudes who think they’re the center of all that exists, and I have no desire to hang out with them. As related to the 2nd F above, F3’s actual purpose is to help guys improve themselves and become better leaders. Kind of hard to do that if you’re a nihilist.  

Oh wait a minute, back to that Fellowship thing. Men’s group? What? I had no idea these even existed until I read Self Made Man: My Year Disguised as a Man. (affiliate link, learn more here) Can’t say that made me want to join one. In case you don’t know what these are, here’s how Skynet defines them:

“Men’s groups are groups of men who meet to discuss shared interests and support each other. They can be found online or in-person and can offer a variety of programs and events, including learning opportunities, growth opportunities, and exclusive tools. Men’s groups can be a good place to:

• Develop new skills, behaviors, and practices
• Connect with other men from around the world
• Become the version of yourself you always thought you’d be
• Talk about feelings, ask for support, and practice expressing a range of emotions
• Learn to trust other men
• Develop a sense of trust and belonging that can spread outwards to everyday lives”

-Google’s AI

As I dug into the F3 websites and podcasts, I found the men’s group aspect was about helping guys to get together for positive social interaction (that thing I was looking for), and to help each other become better husbands and dads (didn’t I say that was my priority awhile back? shit.)

Why just men? Afterall, I’m the guy who got the shit kicked out of him because I was dancing on a bar in an attempt to fight sexism (that’s a whole other story…it made sense when I was 20 and halfway through a bottle of Wild Turkey). 

I know a few women, so while I’ve already broached the hot button religion topic, let me go ahead and crater this blog some more. Next I’ll make some greatly flawed sweeping generalizations about an entire gender based on a few anecdotes. 🙄

From the outside looking in, it seems that when the women in my life socialize, they more quickly move to “real shit” topics and are more emotionally intelligent about supporting one another. 

Back when I was in full time stay at home dad mode, I’d take my daughter to story time at the library, and afterwards she’d play in the kid’s section for awhile. The other moms (I was one of two dads) would talk, and immediately jump into what was bothering them and how they were dealing with it. I remember one time a new mom showed up, and she broke down crying about the postpartum stuff she was going through. The other moms immediately gathered around her, hugging her and telling her about their own experiences. It was actually pretty fucking awesome. Not the postpartum issues, those for sure suck. But the way this struggling person was able to find support from people who she just met. 

Meanwhile, over in guy world, things are a tad different. Nature, nurture, I don’t know. But for whatever reason, it seems like we don’t talk about real shit, let alone express any weakness unless things have gotten super terrible and we’ve known the other guy for years. Even then we’ll dance around the issue, and it’s probably going to take copious amounts of alcohol to get there. You need some serious prodding for many guys (me included) to talk about tough shit. In person that is; give me an anonymous blog and I guess I can’t shut up about it. 🙃

Weirdly, this F3 thing seems to have figured out a shortcut. Turns out exercise is a great excuse to get guys together. And self improvement is a great way to start a conversation. We all want to get more better, right? Well guess what-it’s kind of hard for other people to help you improve if you don’t communicate what’s bothering you in the first place. To improve, you have to actually define where you are and where you’re trying to go. Complex stuff, huh?

For example, F3 encourages it’s local chapters to socialize outside of workouts to facilitate that second F-Fellowship. The founding chapter recommended grabbing coffee after a workout. So that’s what we do about once a week. 

A few weeks ago we were at the coffee shop post workout, and one of the guys brought up an issue: He was struggling with being number 2 all the time with his kids. So anytime one of his kids was crying or needed help, they’d immediately seek out mom. While his wife and him try to share parenting duties equally, this still happens. It results in his wife getting worn out, and him feeling left out. The whole thing was relatively small, but still getting to him. He didn’t know what to do.

Turns out, every single one of us there has the same issue. We talked for awhile about it, theorizing about causes, and actionable stuff like supporting our wives since despite our best efforts they were still taking more of the parenting stuff. The dad that brought it up had relatively young kids, and it was good to hear from some guys who’s kids are now out of the house. I don’t think we solved anything there, but honestly it was just good to talk about it. It was reassuring to not feel alone. Had our wives been there, I don’t know if it would have been the same. 

Finally, to wrap up my feeble attempts to address the gender thing as it relates to F3, if you happen to be a woman and are interested in a similar cult, there’s this thing called FiA. Guess a bunch of women got annoyed that their male counterparts were having so much fun and made their own version. Their website looks better.

So yeah, it’s kind of culty. You get a ridiculous nickname if you show up regularly. There’s all sorts of funny little conventions. Turns out one of the founders was a SF guy, and I for sure recognized the source of some of them. But overall its good.

The 5:30am thing does suck, especially since I don’t actually need to get up that early to work out now that I don’t have a full time job. The time is set so guys can get a workout in before their family gets up, and still help with all the domestic stuff before heading off to work. For me, I realized that if I was going to make social stuff a priority (blerg), I was going to have to meet people where they are. Early morning seems like a better alternative than late nights at the bar. Plus you got to live hard to be hard and all that shit.

The workouts themselves are pretty good, and fun. Leadership and who makes them up rotates every day, which spices it up. As you know, I’m a bit of a workout snob. So in case you were worried, I’ve been able to integrate their random stuff into my longevity and mountain bike driven goals. It’s been some give and take with my own programming, but I realized that if I was going to prioritize for social (again; blergedy blerg blerg) I was going to have to make some compromises.

Stumbling upon this F3 stuff has been pretty great, especially after moving to a new town. I now know a whole bunch of people close by, and feel like….connected or whatever to the community. If there’s one criticism that seems to ring true of the FIRE world, it’s that the pursuit of FI can isolate you. After all, you end up doing the opposite of what most people do. You won’t’ be spending shit tons of money on stupid shit that doesn’t make your life any better. And then if you keep at it, you may find yourself leaving the biggest source of most people’s social connection, your full time job. 

Yeah, all the FI social events are great, and maybe you’re lucky and live somewhere that meetups are more regular than they are by me. But if not, F3 seems like a good solution. On top of the social support being one the eight levers of longevity (affiliate link), there’s some other benefits too:

• It’s always outside, so you end up watching the sun come up. In addition to this being a beautiful thing to watch, that Huberman guy won’t shut up about how doing this improves your sleep.
• It’s still a workout, which hey, is also apparently good for you. Having a group of people hold you accountable in a positive way sure helps make this a consistent practice.
• It’s free. 
• Sometimes, if you’re lucky, there’s coffee.

If you’re not satisfied with only being in one cult, maybe check out F3 or FiA. F3 has an international presence, while the younger FiA is only in about half the states so far. If there’s none by you, you can always start your own chapter(which is also free to do). Be the change you want, and all that. I’m sure glad someone did by me.

Okey doke, what do you think about all that? Have you heard of either of these weird nonprofits that use working out as an excuse to talk about feels? Have I drank the kool aid (again)? Discuss below.