About a year-and-a-half ago, Brendan Rice decided to create his own Meetup group for men in the basement of Gryphon Games and Comics in Fort Collins. Twice per month for six months, he waited for an hour to meet the first member of his group. No one came.
Rice had been in therapy for a few years after going through a tough breakup. The Meetup group was part of his effort to rebuild his own community and offer a place where other men could be comfortable talking about both the light and heavy parts of life.
He photoshopped a logo, paid the $40 fee and found a free space in Gryphon’s basement. He named the group “Fort Collins Men Supporting Men.” Even when the room was silent, Rice realized that taking just an hour break from his busy work life as the owner of a catering company was a major relief.
“It was really nice to have an hour every two weeks to just sit there, phone off,” Rice says. “Nobody’s calling me, nobody needs anything. It was just my little hour.”
Today, Rice’s Meetup group has 77 members. Sometimes new members come in crisis looking for support. Other times, Rice introduces a conversation topic. Or the group just gets to talking.
Rice says his Meetup group serves as a reminder to men to pause for a moment and take stock of what they need. Regardless of how that self-care looks—some might prefer a day out golfing or hiking with friends over solitude—he’s learned that it’s highly important.
Men often take on a provider mindset that can distract them from taking time for themselves, he says.
“Taking care of other people becomes you thinking that you’re taking care of yourself,” Rice says. “But the reality is that it’s not, and you need to be accountable to your own needs and however that looks for you.”
Group from the Confident Man Ranch Retreat at Sylvan Dale Guest Ranch.
Retreating with confidence
For some, self-care means stepping away from life’s demands for more than an hour to get in touch with themselves. But they don’t have to go far.
Steve Horsmon and Tim Wade are life coaches and the organizers of the Confident Man Ranch Retreat, an event they put on twice per year at Sylvan Dale Guest Ranch just west of Loveland. The four-day experience invites a group of 10 men to delve into their personal relationships and explore their values. It represents a sector of the “manosphere” that rejects macho, pound-your-chest narratives in favor of a relationship-positive, sex-positive and woman-positive atmosphere, they say.
Having a sense of community and talking about feelings are essential yet often overlooked elements of men’s self-care, Horsmon says. He encourages men to get curious about themselves, what they believe in and what they value so that they can grow emotionally.
“It feels like less work than before,” Horsmon says of men becoming more introspective. “It’s about a new kind of quiet competence that comes from not talking so much but seeing and feeling.”
The Confident Man Retreat grew in popularity after it was featured in GQ Magazine in 2023, highlighting what Horsmon says is a common longing for campfire conversations where “you get to be seen and not criticized or shamed and feel like you’re in a locker room.”
“There’s a longing for approval,” he says. “There’s a longing for fathering.”
During the retreats, each man is assigned a horse that he cares for and works with. They do different exercises, like asking the horse to walk across a wooden bridge as a way of reflecting on how they interact with others in their world. Wade says that serves as a jumping-off point for deeper conversations.
“Are they too dominant? Are they too timid? Are they unclear?” he says.
Participants leave the ranch feeling connected to each other—including the online community of 40,000 men partaking in Horsmon and Wade’s courses—as well as to their spouses, kids and other loved ones, they say.
Staying connected
Incidentally, Horsmon and Wade also met through a Meetup group prior to establishing their ranch retreat in 2016. Both had gone through divorces and were searching for answers.
“I was looking for other men who I could talk to on a deeper level than beer and football,” Wade says.
Rice, of the Fort Collins Men Supporting Men group, says there is still a stigma surrounding men who talk about their emotions. He often tells others in the group that masculinity doesn’t require men to be a certain way.
Rice incorporates other self-care practices, like morning yoga, in his routine. Regardless, he says the Meetup group will remain a big way he takes care of himself.
“It makes me feel like I’m putting something out into the world that isn’t a product, isn’t work, isn’t something that I get paid for,” he says. “It’s just something that I do because I choose to, and that feels good.”
Other Forms of Self-care
Spa Treatments
Heading to the spa may not be the first place men seek out self-care. But men who think they’ll be outnumbered at the spa might want to think again, says Melissa Stewart, owner of Soak Spa in Fort Collins.
One of the day spa’s core services, a foot soak accompanied by a massage, is highly popular with men. It’s a great introduction to the spa because the treatment doesn’t require clients to get undressed like they would during a traditional massage, and it can serve as an introductory way to see if clients like the more nurturing touch of a massage.
Massages aren’t all fluffy relaxation treatments, either, Stewart says. Deep tissue and sports massages can have a real therapeutic effect for clients.
Men who are looking for other avenues of self-care can check out different skincare treatments, though men still represent a largely untapped market in that regard, Stewart says. Still, she says her spa offers cleansing and hydrating experiences, such as hydrafacials, that can also help with irritated skin beneath a beard.
Soak Spa
Physical Activity
Most people know that physical activity has major potential to enhance well-being. Even a brisk, 10-minute walk can increase mental alertness and energy and improve your mood, according to the Mental Health Foundation.
Many men have successfully blended the benefits of physical exercise with personal connection by finding activity-specific groups for running, biking, hiking, golf, lifting weights and more. Many find groups through Meetup, but local retailers often put on their own community events. For example, Altitude Running, a running store in Greeley and Fort Collins, holds a variety of running clubs on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays.
