I want to tell you about Vinnie’s patio.
Most weekday afternoons, beginning around five o’clock, anywhere from four to eight men would congregate at his house — real estate professionals, contractors, men who worked hard and played harder. The backyard was something: lush plants, a hot tub, outdoor grills, the kind of space that invites you to stay longer than you planned. In the spring and summer we would grill chicken or steaks and carry on for two hours or more. There was always laughing. Always storytelling. Always the particular looseness that comes when men who trust each other let their guards down at the end of a long day.
For a decade or more, that patio was one of the best things in my life.
I have been thinking about those men lately. At least four of the regulars have died, including Vinnie himself. And I find myself doing what men of a certain age do — tallying the losses, measuring the distance between then and now, wondering what exactly it was that made those afternoons feel so necessary.
The Gang — An Evening at Vinnie’s — Tulsa, 2004
What We Were Really Doing
There was an elephant in the room, of course. There always is in gatherings like that one.
The alcohol was not incidental. In all honesty, the group would not have existed without it. Most of the men were single, widowed, or divorced — they had no one to go home to, and the patio was where the evening lived. For them it was not a detour from the rest of the day. It was the destination.
I was different. I was married. Bonnie was at home, patiently waiting, cooking dinner. By the time I arrived she was usually ready to set the table — and although she was good at hiding it, she was not pleased at the condition I arrived in. This went on for years. There were evenings when, in all honesty, I probably should have taken a taxi home. I justified it because I only lived a few blocks away.
I am not proud of that. But I am telling you because the truth of that patio — the whole truth — is what makes it worth writing about. The joy was real. The companionship was genuine. And the cost was real too.
The joy was real. The companionship was genuine. And the cost was real too.
The Science Beneath the Storytelling
What we were doing on Vinnie’s patio, underneath all the laughter and the grilling and the cold drinks, was something the researchers now tell us is as essential to health as exercise or sleep.
Social connection — real, repeated, face-to-face human contact — is not a luxury for older men. It is a survival mechanism. The data is stark: chronic loneliness carries a mortality risk comparable to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. It rivals obesity and physical inactivity as a threat to longevity. And yet we accept it as an inevitable feature of aging, as though the slow erosion of our social world is simply the price of getting old.
It is not inevitable. But replacing what we lose requires intention — and honesty about what we actually need.
What those men on Vinnie’s patio needed, underneath the drinks and the stories, was exactly what they found there: to be known. To be seen. To belong somewhere specific, with specific people, at a specific time of day. The researchers have a name for places like that patio. They call it a third place — a location that is neither home nor work, where a man can simply exist among others who are glad he showed up.
Most men don’t realize how much they depended on their second place — the workplace — to provide that until it’s gone. Retirement eliminates the office, the colleagues, the built-in daily rhythm of human contact. And without a third place to fill that gap, home — even a good home, even a loving one — can become a kind of quiet isolation.
After Vinnie
When that group dissolved, I found another. A friend named Van hosted a similar gathering — back deck, towering trees, lush landscaping, a water feature. The same general cast of characters. The same general arrangement. It lasted maybe five years. Good memories. And then it too was gone, along with several of its members.
I have noticed something about the way men lose their third places. It rarely happens all at once. It happens the way Hemingway described going broke — gradually, and then suddenly. One man moves. Another gets sick. The host’s circumstances change. And then one afternoon you realize you haven’t been somewhere in six months that was just for the pleasure of being with other men, and you’re not entirely sure when that stopped.
Where I Am Now
I found my third place — my permanent one, as it turns out — not on a patio but in a pew.
St. Rita’s Chapel sits on the forty-acre campus of Cascia Hall, here in Tulsa. Bonnie and I have worshipped there for thirty years, in the front row, where we have always sat and always will. It is home in the deepest sense of that word — not just familiar, but rooted. The Augustinian community there shares our faith, our values, the particular kind of love that comes from walking the same spiritual road together for decades. I serve as a lector, rotating every six to eight weeks, a role I have carried for most of the last fifteen to twenty years.
What St. Rita’s gives me that Vinnie’s patio could not is permanence. The faces change slowly, not suddenly. The purpose is larger than the gathering. And Bonnie is beside me, not waiting at home.
I am not suggesting that church is the answer for every man reading this. I am suggesting that what every man needs — what the research confirms and what my own life has taught me — is a place where he is known, where he belongs, where his presence is expected and his absence would be noticed. A place that is his, that asks something of him, and that gives back something that cannot be found alone.
Every man needs a place where he is known, where he belongs, where his presence is expected and his absence would be noticed.
