Hour-long conversation with Sam Pressler and Soren Duggan of Nobody to Call on what male isolation looks like when the men living it describe it themselves
DENVER, Colo. – Goodpain Podcast hosted by Jeremy and Tyler Adams, releases Episode 17 today. The episode runs just over one hour and features Sam Pressler and Soren Duggan, co-authors of Nobody to Call: An Exploration of Friendship, Community, and Purpose Among Men Without College Degrees, published May 12, 2026.
Nobody to Call drew on 30 one-on-one virtual interviews with American men ages 24 to 45, all without college degrees, conducted between October 2025 and March 2026. Each interview ran 30 to 45 minutes and covered friendship, community, role models, and purpose. The report was produced with the Survey Center on American Life and Ipsos, and funded by the American Institute for Boys and Men.
Episode 17 moves past the report’s published findings into the researchers’ experience conducting it. Duggan, who led all 30 interviews, describes the consistency with which men opened up about grief, lost friendships, and isolation to a stranger over Zoom. Pressler addresses the structural argument beneath the data: that men without degrees face a friendship cliff at high school graduation, a slow drift across the following decade, and single points of failure in their relational lives that no degree of individual effort repairs.
The conversation also surfaces a case the report covers in analysis but that gains greater texture in spoken discussion – Roger, 45, the one man in the interview pool whose relational life crossed overlapping institutions over five decades, built before he was born. His case frames the episode’s central argument: inherited connection differs from constructed connection, and most men in the study were asked to build what even a motivated person cannot assemble alone.
The conversation closes by naming what runs beneath all of it: not a crisis of loneliness, but a crisis of collective accompaniment.
Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify Full report: nobodytocall.org Goodpain: goodpainco.com
Press Contact: Tyler Adams contact@goodpaico.com
ABOUT THE GUESTS
Sam Pressler is a writer, researcher, and community-builder focused on the intersection of civic life and class. He’s currently a Practitioner Fellow at UVA’s Karsh Institute of Democracy, a Research Affiliate at the Harvard Human Flourishing Program, and the creator of the Connective Tissue newsletter. In his past life, he founded and served as the Executive Director of the Armed Services Arts Partnership (ASAP), the nation’s largest community arts organization for veterans and military families. His grandmas are very proud of him.
Soren Duggan is a communications strategist, researcher, and writer dedicated to understanding how the modern media and information ecosystem influences our culture and politics. He previously served for nine years in the United States Army, operating in human intelligence collection roles for U.S. Special Operations where he deployed to Afghanistan and Syria. As a Center for Public Leadership Fellow at Harvard University, he co-founded Shared America, a 501(c)(3) creating and proliferating pro-social sentiment through digital strategic communications. He now focuses on deep qualitative methodologies to answer questions about the unique social and political issues of today.
ABOUT NOBODY TO CALL
Nobody to Call is a research project of Connective Tissue. This research was supported by Rise Together, a donor-advised fund administered by National Philanthropic Trust and established by Richard Reeves (Founding President, American Institute for Boys and Men). More in Common provided fiscal sponsorship for the project, and the Survey Center on American Life and Ipsos served as key research partners.
ABOUT GOODPAIN PODCAST
Goodpain Podcast launched in Summer 2025 with a single conviction: the stories people are least likely to tell are the ones worth building a show around. Hosted by Jeremy & Tyler Adams, each season takes on a single excavation site each season exploring what it means to be human through guest conversations that are formative, vulnerable, and specific. Goodpain focused on Loss, Grief, and Recovery followed by Immature & Mature Masculinity in Seasons 1 and 2 respectively. Season 3 will focus on artistic expression as a unifying experience, exploring stories of music, cinema, craftsmanship, and creative writing.
In under a year, the show earned a 5-star rating and a spot in the 2026 New Voices AMPLIFY cohort, a competitive accelerator run by the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) and supported by Apple Podcasts for independent creators from historically underrepresented communities.
Goodpain Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Visit goodpainco.com for full episodes and show resources.
