| CAPE TOWN JACKS PRESENT |
| BETWEEN BROS |
| The stuff men think about and the stuff we should talk about. |
|
| |
| Hey Bro’s! |
|
I’ve wanted Cape Town Jacks to talk about more than sex for a while.
|
|
Strip away the usual bullshit when you get a group of men together, and there’s a lot going on underneath. Bodies, confidence, shame, mental health, friendship, getting older, drugs, rejection, desire. Trying to work out where the hell you fit.
|
|
That’s what Between Bros is for. Twice a month, we’ll take one of those things and talk about it properly. No pretending to be experts, no inspirational bullshit. Just useful information, good research and the conversations we should be having with each other more.
|
|
First on the list is loneliness, because it’s personal. I started Cape Town Jacks at a time when I was struggling with a kind of loneliness that had very little to do with whether I had people around me. I did have a social circle, but I was carrying a lot of shame, anxiety around my body, and things I didn’t really know how to talk about. I’ve always been someone who speaks my mind, but depression got the better of me for a while. I withdrew into myself, and even around people I cared about, I could still feel completely alone in what I was going through.
|
|
Connection then came from somewhere I wasn’t expecting, camming with other guys online. There was something surprisingly freeing about being seen by other men while also talking openly about bodies, sex, insecurity and all the other stuff we tend to keep to ourselves. During lockdown, a small group of us made it a weekly ritual. When restrictions lifted, five of us met in person for the first time.
|
|
What I remember most wasn’t the sexual part. It was sitting with guys who wanted the same thing I did, somewhere to relax around other men. Talk shit. Talk seriously. Be honest. Then more guys wanted in, and that little group became Cape Town Jacks.
|
|
I still struggle with my mental health, and I probably always will. But I’m open about it these days. I’m willing to face that demon head on, and I don’t carry the shame about it I used to.
|
|
So this feels like the right place to start.
|
| — JJ |
|
|
|
|
WE’VE NEVER HAD MORE WAYS TO REACH EACH OTHER. SO WHY CAN IT STILL FEEL SO FUCKING LONELY?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Most of us are rarely completely disconnected. WhatsApp, Instagram, dating apps and group chats keep a steady stream of people on our screens all day. We can know where someone had dinner without having actually spoken to them in months.
|
|
Yet loneliness remains remarkably common. The World Health Organization estimates around one in six people globally experience it, younger people especially. Contact isn’t the same as connection. You can be busy, popular, sexually active and constantly around people while still feeling like there’s nobody you could phone when something’s genuinely wrong.
|
|
For gay and bi men there’s often another layer. Research consistently finds higher loneliness among sexual-minority adults than heterosexual peers, driven by things like rejection, stigma, hiding parts of yourself and having to actively search out a community where you belong. We’re often better at one kind of intimacy than another too. No problem sending a nude, but telling a mate “I’m actually struggling” feels far more exposing.
|
|
Being around someone isn’t always the same as being close to them.
|
|
|
|
A lot of men grow up believing coping quietly is a virtue. Independence good, needing people less good. If life gets hard, you work harder, make a joke, hit the gym, have a drink.
|
|
That’s shifting, but not gone. Admitting loneliness can feel like admitting you failed socially, so it gets disguised as something else. I’m bored. I need a boyfriend. I hate Cape Town. Everyone’s flaky. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes underneath it is just wanting to matter to someone. And loneliness isn’t solved by adding more people, it’s solved by belonging, having places you can show up without auditioning for your spot.
|
|
| MORE CONTACT ISN’T ALWAYS MORE CONNECTION |
|
Blaming apps for all of this would be too neat. Online spaces genuinely connect people, Cape Town Jacks itself began online. The problem is when digital contact replaces every other kind. Research comparing face-to-face and digital communication finds in-person contact offers wellbeing benefits digital alone doesn’t reliably match, things like the pauses, eye contact, body language, the awkward silences that tell you someone’s actually there.
|
|
Dating apps add their own contradiction. More access to men than ever, while still feeling disposable. There’s always another profile a few hundred metres away. That doesn’t make apps inherently bad, but research does link problematic app use to loneliness and worse mental health for some users.
|
|
More access to people therefore doesn’t automatically mean more intimacy.
|
|
|
“REAL ROOMS STILL BEAT FEEDS.”
|
|
| WHEN LONELINESS STARTS COSTING YOU |
|
Loneliness isn’t just an unpleasant mood. Persistent isolation is linked to a range of poorer mental and physical health outcomes, which is why the WHO now treats social connection as a public-health issue.
|
|
There’s a strong link between loneliness and depression, and research also connects it to problematic alcohol and drug use, in both directions. Substances can temporarily do some of what connection does. They ease anxiety, make socialising easier, fill an empty evening. The relief is real, which is exactly why it works as a coping mechanism, and exactly why it can quietly make things worse.
|
|
Loneliness is also one of many factors linked to suicide risk, though no single cause explains it. The point is simple. Our relationships are part of our health, and we should probably start treating them that way.
|
|
|
There’s no hack for loneliness, and you don’t need twenty new friends. What the research points to is far less dramatic. Just regular, meaningful contact with the same people.
|
|
Friendship builds through repetition more than chemistry. You keep showing up, someone remembers your name, a familiar face eventually becomes someone you message outside that space. It can happen through sport, volunteering, recovery groups, kink spaces or dinners with friends, the activity matters less than the repetition.
|
|
It also takes doing something that feels vulnerable. Sending the first message. Going back even when the first visit felt awkward. Saying “I’m actually not doing that well” instead of “good, you?” None of it guarantees friendship. But it creates the conditions for it.
|
|
|
|
This is the part apps can’t do.
|
| WHERE CAPE TOWN JACKS FITS INTO THIS |
|
Cape Town Jacks isn’t therapy, and a Sunday Session isn’t a treatment for loneliness. I don’t want to pretend otherwise.
|
|
But I think spaces like ours play a small part in something bigger. Guys don’t only come for what happens sexually, they recognise each other, stand outside talking, exchange numbers. Someone who knew nobody last month knows three people this month. Friendships form independently of Jacks entirely. Sometimes someone comes to play. Sometimes they just hang around talking. Sometimes both.
|
|
And I like that.
|
|
Cape Town Jacks might have started around masturbation, but underneath that has always been something more basic, men wanting to be around other men without having to perform so much.
|
|
Maybe that’s why this community exists at all.
|
|
| SO HERE’S SOMETHING TO TRY |
|
Before you close this email, think of one guy you haven’t spoken to properly in a while. Not your best friend, not someone you’re dating. Just someone whose company you actually enjoy.
|
|
Send him a message. Ask how he’s doing, properly, not the usual “Howzit, what’s up?” Then give him space to answer.
|
|
And if you’re the lonely one reading this, maybe tell somebody that too. You’d be surprised how many men are waiting for someone else to say it first.
|
|
|
|
| TALK BACK |
| This is the first issue, and I want it to go both ways. If it landed, if I missed something, or there’s something men aren’t talking about that we should cover, hit reply. A real person reads this inbox. Often that’s me. |
|
|
| UP NEXT |
| SUNDAY SESSION |
▪ Sunday, 30 August 2026
▪ 2pm – 4pm, doors close 2:40pm sharp
▪ Casa Kink, 4 Engine Avenue, Montague Gardens
|
|
Come play. Come hang out. Come see some familiar faces or meet some new ones.
|
|
|
|
|
NEED SOMEONE TO TALK TO?
|
|
If this issue brought up something heavier for you, there are people you can speak to.
|
| SADAG SUICIDE CRISIS HELPLINE |
|
0800 567 567 · Available 24 hours
|
|
Concerned about your drinking or drug use?
|
|
Narcotics Anonymous runs free in-person and online meetings across the Western Cape.
|
Phoneline · 0861 00 6962
WhatsApp · 066 371 5196 or 063 744 7049
|
|
Alcoholics Anonymous runs free meetings across South Africa, in person and online.
|
National helpline · 0861 435 722 (24 hours)
WhatsApp · 073 021 2523
|
|
Worried about your sexual behaviour?
|
|
Sex Addicts Anonymous South Africa supports men whose sexual behaviour has become something they can’t control.
|
|
Phone · 0800 128 470
|
|
You don’t need to wait until things are completely out of control before asking for help.
|
|
|
|
Between Bros · a Cape Town Jacks project · Cape Town, South Africa
Unsubscribe
|
|
|
|
