The Buddy System
A Modern Man’s Guide to Mastering Friendship and Leveling Up Your Life
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.00 for first 30 days
The Buddy System
Buy for $24.95
-
Narrated by:
-
Matt Ritter
-
Aaron Karo
Let's face it—making and keeping friends as a grown man isn't easy. Between careers, relationships, and life's responsibilities, meaningful male friendships often take a backseat. But what if there were a proven system to help you build the social connections you've been missing?
Welcome to The Buddy System: A Modern Man's Guide to Mastering Friendship and Leveling Up Your Life, created by comedians, lifelong pals, and hosts of the wildly popular “Man of the Year” podcast, Matt Ritter and Aaron Karo. This groundbreaking audio guide provides a step-by-step framework for making new friends and strengthening existing relationships—all while keeping it real, relatable, and occasionally ridiculous.
Drawing from their nearly four decades of friendship, Matt and Karo break down the art and science of male friendship into simple, actionable strategies that actually work. From overcoming the dreaded "friendship recession" to mastering the delicate art of getting another dude's digits (without making it weird), they tackle the challenges that keep men from forming deeper connections.
You'll learn how to:
- Break through limiting beliefs that hold you back from making new friends
- Find your "Third Place"—the key to meeting like-minded people
- Level up casual acquaintances into real friendships
- Show up for your buddies during both good times and bad
- Create meaningful and lasting traditions that keep your crew connected
- Avoid the awkward “We should hang out sometime” conversation you never actually follow through on
The Buddy System isn't just about making friends—it's about becoming the kind of friend people actually want in their lives. Through hilarious stories, research-backed insights, and proven techniques, friendship experts Matt and Karo will help you build your "social fitness" just like you’d hit the gym and build physical fitness.
So, whether you're looking to expand your social circle, deepen existing friendships, or simply feel more connected, The Buddy System is the roadmap you need to get off the sidelines and back in the game. No more settling for surface-level relationships or letting great friendships fade away. It's time to level up your social life…and your life, period.
©2025 Matt Ritter and Aaron Karo (P)2025 Audible Originals, LLC.Listeners also enjoyed...
People who viewed this also viewed...
Great ideas for building friendship delivered with humor and passion!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Worth the time
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Karo sounds like he's a natural at making friends. Ritter sounds like everybody's top pick for "kindest dude I know."
Karo is all about systems—his email inbox is at 0. Ritter is comfortable basking in the chaos of any given day as a husband, father and creative fella in Hollywood. You'd think that this combination of authors would lead to "riveting" advice like "just be yourself" and "you know, just shoot the sh!!t."
But no, these two break down phase by phase, step by step on what makes their friendships work and how to do the hardest part: take that first step.
In an increasingly lonely society, it’s easy for even the most social butterfly to atrophy in socializing in person.
Karo and Ritter draw on their 40+ years as friends and combined 37 years in a totally new city (they live in LA, but used to live in the NYC burbs).
It’s an audiobook, but even an hour into the book you’ll be aching to see where these roadmaps all lead to. Maybe one day in the future. They don’t pretend to be self-help gurus and aren’t trying to push you to sign up for their monthly modules or biohacking and transformational drivel. They’re literally a pair of buddies who each pursued one career in their 20s and then changed careers and coasts by their 30s.
Their parents are baby boomers and they sound like the two of them had great parents. Still, the advice from parents’ experience to the next generation on making friends might feel too vague for an overwhelmed lonely adult.
As an exceptionally anxious person who can be a social golden retriever, I know the pitfalls of the inner voice that casts doubt on being proactive socially. This audiobook put me at ease. It made me excited to be in my 40s. When I was in my 20s, I would be filled with envy and contempt of my same-age colleagues, as if they’re beating me in a life race. I actively kept myself very private from my coworkers. While my social life was fulfilling, I languished socially at work, and by proxy, career wise as well.
But If I heard The Buddy System advice 18 years ago, I would have been armed with more social sentences to use when taking friendships to from 0 to anything above 0. I would have had better productive future-thinking conversations that would have fast-tracked my transition from my previous career to my current career.
I love that they give examples of exactly what to say. So many books that tackle this topic are only made so the author can have “a book” they can sell. Karo and Ritter have processes worth repeating and emulating. They’re aware of their own schpilkes, they can call each other out not for the sake of entertaining listeners but because at the core, they care.
This is a book about learning to be comfortable in your own skin. Readers will learn how to work on friendships in the same manner that you should focus on eating well and staying physically active. I do see the irony of pouring this out on a digital-only platform, but this book is worth taking up a little bit of your allotment of digital indulgence as you read/listen to it. It will inspire people to get off online message boards and comment threads and turn DMs and common interests and energy into real friendships.
This review is really long so many next time they can write a book about being succinct (a skill I need). Why do I bring this up? Because they’re not just riffing for 5 hours. Every word, every sentence, every intonation in this audiobook is polished and intentional. The way I feel now after reading/listening to The Buddy System is how every author should hope their reader feels when writing an advice book.
I wish I had this book 18 yrs ago
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Easy to Follow Ideas for Making New Friends
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrator does a good job capturing the tone, making it feel conversational and real. Some parts drag a little or feel repetitive, but overall it's an easy, relatable listen that balances light moments with genuine emotion. It's not perfect, but it leaves you thinking about how much our friends shape who we are.
A great listen with solid points.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.