Introduction
For most Australian men, male loneliness and the struggle to make real friends after 50 isn’t something they talk about. It isn’t even something many of them have named. It’s just a background hum — the sense that something is missing, that the mates they used to have have drifted away, that work was where their friendships lived and now that’s changing.
David Pointon has spent over a decade building a quiet answer to that hum. Men’s Table is a not-for-profit organisation he co-founded in Sydney that now runs nearly 300 tables across Australia, bringing together groups of 10 to 12 men once a month to do something most of them have never done before: have a real conversation.
Not about football. Not about the renovation. About what is actually going on.
In this conversation with Pod O’Sullivan, David talks about how caring connection — the most underpractised skill in a man’s life — became the founding idea of one of Australia’s most quietly important men’s organisations. And why the ripple effects of men learning to be heard extend well beyond the room.
What You'll Hear
- Why banter is both the entry point to male friendship and the wall that stops it going further — and how Men’s Table navigates that in the first session
- The story of the alpha male at the table who started talking about never having children, and why that one moment changed everything for David
- What women report about their partners after six months at a Men’s Table: better listening, more emotional attunement, and less anger at home
- How David and his wife separated after 21 years together, and the one thing they did differently that made coming back possible
- The Einstein quote about growing circles of light that David uses to explain why self-awareness always reveals more unknowns, not fewer
- Why the men’s wellbeing sector is chronically underfunded — and why David believes that needs to change at government and philanthropic level
- What the 75-year-old version of David would tell him now about self-care, slowing down, and the well from which good work actually flows
If you’ve ever felt that something is missing in your friendships, or found yourself relying on your partner for conversations you wish you could have with other men, this episode will feel like someone finally said it out loud.
Guest info
David Pointon
David Pointon is the co-founder and CEO of Men’s Table, an Australian not-for-profit organisation that brings men together in small monthly groups to practice caring connection. What began as a single table of 12 men in Sydney in 2017 has grown to nearly 300 tables across Australia, with more than 3,000 men participating monthly.
David’s career spanned school teaching, hospitality management, and management consulting before a 2011 dinner invitation sparked the idea that became Men’s Table. He is a regular meditator, a trained facilitator, and an advocate for public and philanthropic investment in men’s community health. He lives in Sydney.
