For most of our lives, Monday morning meant returning to work. This summer, a group of strangers gave it another meaning.

“Norm” does not enter the Monday coffee gathering quietly.

He walks through the door with a broad smile and a belly laugh, greeting the room before he reaches the table.

Heads turn. Men smile. Someone calls out to him. Before he sits down, the ribbing has already started.

For the next hour and a half, the table moves easily from one conversation to another. The guys share stories from their weekends and plans for the week ahead. They debate the news, talk proudly about their families, and give each other a hard time whenever an opportunity presents itself.

The laughter is frequent, genuine, and often loud enough to turn heads at the surrounding tables.

Six or so months ago, “Norm” did not know any of these men.

Now they know where he likes to sit. They know enough about his life to ask about his weekend.

If he did not appear one Monday, people would notice.

Back then, “See you Monday” meant the weekend was over and it was time to return to the office, the job site, the shop, or wherever work required us to be.

Work gave us more than responsibilities. It put us around familiar faces, casual conversations, and people who knew our names.

Then work ends.

The meetings stop. The lunch conversations disappear. Former coworkers remain busy inside a routine that no longer includes you.

There is usually no falling out.

Nobody decides the friendship is over.

The calls simply become less frequent. Lunch is suggested but never scheduled. A month passes, then another.

This is what I see as the friendship cliff.

Many men do not see it coming because at first it feels like freedom.

The calendar opens. The alarm stays off. Monday becomes another day.

Only later does the quiet become noticeable.

During our walks, men often tell me they still have friends from their working years.

They may rarely see them or know much about their daily lives, but they believe those friends would answer the phone in an emergency.

They may be right.

But knowing someone would answer at two in the morning is not the same as having someone who expects to see you at nine on Monday.

There is a difference between having friends somewhere in your history and having friendship in your life.

This summer, I watched a group of men begin putting some of that back into their lives.

This was not a reunion of high school buddies telling the same stories they had been telling for fifty years.

Most walked into their first gathering knowing nobody.

They came for weekly walks, coffee gatherings, bike rides, and summer patio dinners.

There were no expectations. Nobody had to explain why he came.

There was simply a place, a time, and something to do.

Then the men came back.

A conversation started during a walk continued over coffee.

A joke from a bike ride returned at dinner.

Men learned one another’s names, remembered the stories, and began looking forward to seeing particular faces.

The group did not manufacture friendship.

It simply gave friendship a chance to happen.

Men found people they genuinely enjoyed being around and wanted to know better.

New friendships began at an age when many assume their years of making new friends are over.

That may be the most hopeful part of this story.

I am grateful to be part of it.

I get to take the walks, sit at the table, hear the stories, and share the laughter.

My life is better for knowing these men.

I know there are men sitting at home this Monday who would enjoy a table like this.

They may not describe themselves as lonely.

Their days may be full of family, hobbies, travel, and plans. They may simply have fewer places outside the family where anybody expects to see them.

That is the part I think we as men underestimate.

Walking into a room full of strangers takes a little nerve.

The men around this table know that because every one of them was the new guy once.

They walked through the door.

They took an empty chair.

And then they came back.

Somewhere along the way, the room changed.

The faces became familiar.

The conversations carried over from one week to the next.

Summer is now giving way to fall.

The patio dinners will end. Rain will interfere with the rides and walks.

But Monday coffee remains.

And so does the expectation that someone will be there.

For most of our working lives, “See you Monday” meant returning to a place where we had to be.

Now it means returning to a place where we want to be.

Another story.

Another debate.

Another round of ribbing.

And another belly laugh when “Norm” walks through the door.

See you Monday.

Jim O’Grady writes The Post Game, a newsletter about life in the GoGo years. He lives in White Rock, BC.