I agree, the close, trusted friends who understand your priorities (if you're married and have kids) are the most important. If you have 5-6 of those, I'd say you're lucky. I lived 12 years in the UK and saw way too many men with fewer or no friends at all, and even those weren't necessarily close confidants.

Sometimes it's by choice, but I feel that a lot of men don't put enough effort into maintaining old friendships, let alone creating new ones. And that's not only when they're married with kids -- which, though understandable, still shouldn't be a valid reason to neglect your friendships. I have a few close friends from my childhood with their own families who I'm still close to because of their and my efforts to keep in touch. The opposite of that is more frequent, though -- at least in my experience.