A Brat Pack Star Remembers How to Have Friends
Andrew McCarthy, a former member of the Brat Pack, reflects on his dwindling male friendships as he enters middle age. To reconnect with his friends, he embarked on a cross-country road trip, leading to meaningful conversations and moments. His experiences are chronicled in his new book, 'Who Needs Friends: An Unscientific Examination of Male Friendship Across America.'
- ▪Andrew McCarthy was part of the famous Brat Pack and starred in iconic films like 'Pretty in Pink' and 'St. Elmo's Fire.'
- ▪Feeling nearly friendless in middle age, he decided to travel across the country to reconnect with old friends.
- ▪His journey and reflections on male friendship are detailed in his new book.
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Record
| Original publisher | Slate Magazine |
| Canonical URL | https://slate.com/podcasts/death-sex-money/2026/05/strengthen-male-friendships-brat-pack-andrew-mccarthy?via=rss |
| Publication time | Tue, 19 May 2026 14:12:42 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-19T14:35:26.610Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-19T14:35:26.610Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | eh6n8ekbiy74 |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Death, Sex & Money May 19, 202610:12 AM A Brat Pack Star Remembers How to Have Friends When actor Andrew McCarthy realized his male friendships were fading, he opted for some radical solutions. Copy Link Share Share <div class="slate-megaphone__slot"></div> View Transcript Advertisement Listen & Subscribe Choose your preferred player: Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon Music TuneIn Pocket Casts RSS Feed For questions about subscriptions or your Slate Plus feed, check our FAQ. <p class="slate-notification--error podcast-how-to-listen__notification">Please enable javascript to get your Slate Plus feeds.</p> All Slate Plus Podcasts Get Your Slate Plus Podcast If you can't access your feeds, please contact customer support. Thanks! Check your phone for a link to finish setting up your feed.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Slate Magazine.
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