How did a guy in his 40s get new friends? Drum Camp!

A drummer pilgrimage to Bentley's Drum Shop in Fresno, Calif.

A few years ago my husband did something crazy for a shy dude in his 40s. He went away to “drum camp,” paying a bunch of money to spend a week with a bunch of strangers all hoping to improve their drumming skills.

That first day when the rest of the “campers” headed out to lunch, my husband headed back to his hotel room, preferring to eat his own food by himself.

Mike Johnston, the man who runs the camps, let my husband get away with that once. But then quietly and firmly made it clear that the point of the camp was not really drumming: It was about spending time with other drummers, learning from each other, supporting each other and becoming a family.

That was cool.

Because when my husband then joined the other campers for dinner, something amazing happened. He enjoyed himself. Even more amazing? He made friends, something that was always difficult for him.

His father still jokes that his first son never made his own friends, only hung out with kids that his younger brother brought home. And when his brother headed out with those friends on Saturday nights, my husband stayed home instead to watch “Hunter” with his dad.

For decades it felt fine for him to not have friends. But as you get older, you realize that most humans need connections with others to be happy. Because friends make the difficult things easier, the boring things fun, and the already fun things even better.

“Being a loner in your 20s is cool. Not so much in your 40s,” he recalls a college professor saying. And since my husband was a loner in his late 30s at the time, that message hit home. Then rang in his head until he finally signed up for one of the drum camps, something he normally would never consider doing.

But never leaving your comfort zone gets boring. And means you only have your wife to talk to about drums, which quickly becomes torture for both of you. So instead of shying away from spending a week with strangers, he signed up to play drums with them.

El Trio de Camarillo: Joe, Chris and Buck.

And the risk paid off. Because at that first camp he made two good friends he still talks drums with daily, plays drums with regularly, and they even occasionally make drum shop pilgrimages, all-day excursions that only drummers understand the need to do.

I even got some great things out of him going to drum camp. Most importantly a happier husband, but also a new joy for myself: watching him and his friends play drums, or just wander around a drum shop together, looking like kids in a candy store. 

Because what’s better than finding something you are passionate about? Finding someone else to share it with. If there is anything that the isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic taught me, it’s that even the most introverted of us enjoy at least some human interaction. And that even if you are a drum guy lucky enough to have a spouse who will try to love what you love, usually what you both really need is for you to get some buds to bang drums with.

 

Wife: "So, why did you need to drive six hours just to go to another drum shop?!" 

Husband: "Two reasons..."