Letter I | For Those Who Seek Fun In Ways That Are Distracting.
Fun is not a barometer to live your life by.
As I pen this letter, bro, know that I am not condemning you. That is to say, I am not judging you out of pride or some hierarchy. I am writing this out of love.
Before I write every letter, I ask God to lead. I trust Him to put me in the right heartspace, and this is also not one of those love and light letters. Fundamentally, I seek Him first before every word is placed.
By now, you should know that I don’t suffer fools. But, in case that minor detail has escaped you, or I have not made it clear before, let me do so now: I do not suffer fools.
I am writing this letter at a reasonable time.
It's just gone 7 am, and I've had my dose of filtered water and sea salts to rebalance me after a sweaty night's sleep. The black coffee is sitting on my desk. My sister will have something to say about the smell of said coffee as she leaves the house for her job. I will sit in here for the next hour, writing this and beginning mine.
At least fifty-two times a year, I am asked about what it means to be a man today, and I exhale in deep exasperation. I reckon there’s an answer that people are looking for that is staring them in the face. One of these letters I send to you will unpack the particular perspective I have on several areas around manhood today, but something struck me as I couldn’t sleep the other night.
We had a conversation over rum and food, and the thing that hit me was this idea of ‘fun’.
I’m sitting with you, and you’ve told me that you want to have fun in response to the question: do you want to have kids, and/or get married?
To answer a question with ‘Yes, but…’ and it not be followed by something tangible, such as money concerns, job satisfaction, or anything such like is a bit of a loose answer, no?
Your response was: I just want to have fun.
Fun. Everyone wants to have fun.
Have we gone fun mad, bro?
So many things troubled me with this. First, it implies that making a commitment to someone and raising children is somehow a prison sentence. We don’t want to go to prison because that is not fun. We don’t want to lose our liberties, because fun does not exist there. It is not an environment where we are meant to find joy (although joy can be found anywhere - another letter I will probably write you at a different time) to compare a serious relationship to that is…foolish.
That sounds judgmental. This is why I said at the beginning of this letter that it is not what I am trying to do. But I get it if it does feel that way.
I have spent years training as a mental health counsellor and coach. I know there is always some underlying reason for the way we act, what we believe, and what we do. Some feelings about self-worth, long-held personal traumas, or daddy and mummy were not the best role models of what a relationship could be.
In your case, though, none of these seem relevant.
You say you’re confident. That is how you present. You say you have all these sexual conquests. You hold them with the most pride. You flaunt them. All in the name of you wanting to have no strings attached, and have no commitments, and bro - it’s scary.
I am scared. I am scared that the last thing hurt you, and you’re grieving out loud.
I know what you went through in that relationship. It wasn’t fun. They broke your heart. I was there. I saw. You were in love for the first time in years. If I am honest, I was jealous.
This isn’t news. I am always jealous when people are in love. I sit there and gaze at the couple like a wide-eyed Disney child, wishing it would happen for me, too. So, I was rooting for you. I wanted to shine off my old church shoes for the wedding, get a better suit, and prepare a speech for the reception. And yet, it didn’t get that far. Not all things are meant to work out, but they do work out for our good. Your heart will survive this.
Now, we are months past this, and you are treating your place as a revolving door for nonsense.
I’ll let you in on a secret: Before I press the doorbell, I pray to God before I walk through the door. I pray that you are safe and your home is safe.
There is this weird idea that because we are men, being a bachelor is the ideal lifestyle. God didn’t make us to be alone. We need friendships, family, and partners for life. No matter which way we look at it, we all can’t be Jack Reacher. A lone man who has no attachments. It draws attention.
Heck, despite his quirks and challenging nature, even Sheldon Cooper had friends and eventually married. (My friend hates the writing of this show, but it’s one of my favourites.)
Again, I am not condemning you. I don’t have that power.
I am a concerned friend. I want to make sure you are safe. I also want to let you know that this is unsustainable.
I have spoken enough, though. I don’t want this letter to become more than it is. You know, letters tend to have more weight than texts and emails. They should. There is an art to them. There is an intentionality to them.
My parting thought is this: fun is not a barometer to live your life by.
I remember when my uncle told me I should have fun the night before my cousin’s wedding. I drank too much and said too much and vomited too much and passed out in front of a disapproving father and worried mother, and a cross-bearing grandmother. My fifteen-year-old cousin and I got lost on the closed compound as she held me up walking home. That was not fun.
If you choose fun as a barometer to live by, you will forever be chasing it. Men today have too much fun in destructive ways. Fun doesn’t mean you have to lose your mind. Fun doesn’t mean you have to alter your brain chemistry. Those things take you away from life. We want to do better at leaning into life.
Stop running.
We are not thinking enough about our responsibility. Adam was in the garden naming the animals, walking and talking with God, and tending to the land. You think there wasn’t fun in his duty? We must think more about responsibility and character - within those things, fun is found. Joy is found. Within those, God is found.
So, my bro, think about that. Is it fun to chaotically sleep with random people each week? Is it fun to live for yourself and not for the service of others? Is it fun to spend little to no time with friends? Is it fun to not have any creative hobbies that speak to your soul, rather than showing people how great your body is?
What are you scared of?
We are so focused on the external that we are finding out slowly that the real key is that to truly live a life of fun, you must love yourself enough to know that fun is not the way to measure a life.
Talk to me,
Alex
My name is Alex Holmes, and I am a writer, mental health therapist, and coach. I write letters and liturgies on men, mental health, and ministry. I believe God has placed me hear to engage with the inner lives of men, speak on the realities of mental health, and explore the developing nature of 21st Century ministry.
If you are interested in anything I do, please visit: alexholmes.co
Or reach out on the Substack app.