What is the author's perspective in the memoir, We Need to Hang Out?

There are two key components of the book’s overall perspective. The first is primarily defined by the author’s personal identity and experiences, while the second is primarily defined by the elements of scientific research he integrates into the narrative.

In terms of the first component of perspective, the author’s considerations are clearly connected to various aspects of his basic identity. These include his maleness, his heterosexual orientation, and his ethno-cultural-economic background. On the one hand, he does acknowledge the defining relationship some of these qualities have to his perceptions of loneliness, and particularly of friendship. He spends a significant amount of time, for example, commenting on the differences between the friendships of men and the friendships of women. On the other hand, he makes no reference whatsoever to the friendships of non-heterosexual men, and no reference to the qualities of bonding associated with male-male relationships that are not connected to a white, emotionally conservative, arguably Christian, arguably middle-class perspective. It is important to note that the author never defines himself as Christian. There is, nevertheless, the clear sense throughout the book that his attitudes towards friendships and male-male intimacy are defined in terms that strongly echo Western patriarchal views of such experiences. Those views are, in general, defined by perspectives associated with Christianity. That definition is sub-textually present throughout the book, co-existing with the similarly implied sense that the author’s perspective is hetero-centric and middle-class-centric.

These clearly defined boundaries around the author’s analysis and experiences are counter-balanced, to some degree, by the second key component of the book’s overall perspective. This is its frequent inclusion of research-based material. That material comes in the form of statistics and commentary from scientists who have investigated the causes and effects of loneliness, as well as the causes and benefits of friendship. The author integrates and references the work of several different scientists, meaning that his data comes from an effectively wide range of sources. The author also ties the integrated research clearly and closely to the personal anecdotes he includes, a technique that gives those anecdotes scientific validity even while the anecdotes give the science a human, lived face and sensibility.