A LENGTHY GROAN ECHOES through the water. To my ears, it’s sad and faintly despairing—the yelp of a lost dog, the shout of someone trapped in a well, a bugle bellowing through thick fog. Sometimes I wish I, too, were a humpback whale that could holler into the ocean to find community. Five years have passed since I transitioned, since I finally decided to move through the world as a man, and I’m struggling to connect with people in ways I never have before.

It’s after midnight and I can’t sleep. I’m alone in the living room, listening to “Solo Whale,” the most plaintive track on Songs of the Humpback Whale, one of the most influential nature albums of all time. The album draws from recordings inadvertently captured in the 1960s by Frank Watlington, a Navy engineer who was monitoring hydrophones in the waters off Bermuda as part of Cold War submarine detection efforts. I picture him on a boat near the craggy limestone coast, white-crested waves crashing beneath inky skies, eavesdropping on sonar pings. Later, while reviewing the data, Watlington discovered unfamiliar sounds and suspected they came from the whales he’d seen swimming in the area. He preserved the tapes and eventually shared them with biologists Roger and Katy Payne, who identified the sounds as belonging to humpbacks. Struck by the recordings’ evocative power, they decided to press a limited run of LPs.

When people first heard what New York Times music critic Donal Henahan described as “strange and moving lyricism,” they were often brought to tears. Then, in 1979, National Geographic sent a flexi disc edition of the album to more than ten million subscribers, and soon humpbacks were booming through suburbia. The recordings captured the public’s imagination and helped win widespread support for the anti-whaling movement. Carl Sagan’s committee even selected them for inclusion on the Golden Record, which NASA launched on both Voyager spacecraft in 1977. I like to think of how the whale song playing through my headphones is also, right now, drifting somewhere through the Milky Way. As I ponder the vast and unfathomable emotional distance that exists between humans, men especially, that cosmic scale seems fitting.

The groan at the beginning of the recording is followed by a higher-pitched sound, closer to a cry. Then there’s a prolonged guttural rumbling, almost ruminative, like a grumpy old man muttering under his breath. I try my best not to anthropomorphize, truly, but it’s a losing battle. Like human music, humpback songs feature identifiable structures and patterns. Individual sounds create units, units form phrases, and phrases make themes. It’s similar to how lines, stanzas, and movements coalesce in a symphony. While not orchestral, these songs are melodic in their own way, and can last ten to thirty minutes, often repeating for hours, sometimes spinning out over an entire day.

For all we know about the structure of their songs, we still don’t know exactly why humpbacks sing. Since this behavior is exhibited almost exclusively by males, it’s certainly plausible that it is related to displays of dominance or attracting a mate. But then again, songs are often sung when no females are present, and they have been recorded in feeding areas and along migration routes, well outside of breeding grounds and seasons. The gaps in scientific knowledge leave room for speculation—and imagination.

I confess when I hear “Solo Whale,” I don’t think of courting. Rather, I see a middle-aged humpback, head covered in decades-old barnacles, casting a message into the dark. Like making a CQ call on ham radio, he’s trying to start a conversation. Calling any station. Is anyone out there?

I like to think of how the whale song playing through my headphones is also, right now, drifting somewhere through the Milky Way. As I ponder the vast and unfathomable emotional distance that exists between humans, men especially, that cosmic scale seems fitting.

SINCE TRANSITIONING, I’ve become more aware of the ways men go about connecting with each other. It wasn’t until my mid-forties that I realized my gender, so I bring decades of female socialization into this new and true version of myself. I’m happy and relieved to be seen for who I am, but I also lost some things I didn’t anticipate. Women are more guarded around me now. A hand is rarely placed on my arm as comfort, hugs are usually of the “let’s not allow our torsos to touch” variety. I understand why. I’m more careful, too. I know my body language lands differently. With men, the distance takes another form. Interactions tend to be more contained. There’s a reservedness that can read as indifference, even when it isn’t intended.

It’s strange to feel simultaneously more yourself and also more alone.

I don’t mean to say that there aren’t men who are open and expressive. I just don’t encounter that kind of masculinity very often. Mostly, I see minimalism: fewer words, fewer gestures, fewer reassurances. Isolated sounds instead of stanzas or songs. There’s a quiet pressure to adapt to that stoic model.

THE TRACK UNFURLS over nine minutes and thirty seconds, and I find myself playing it on repeat, just as a good whale would. In part because it’s an astonishing acoustic display, and I am filled with wonder every time I hear it. But something else is going on inside me, too. I must have listened to this maybe twenty times in my life, but now it resonates more deeply. I think I’m drawn to these haunting sounds precisely because they evoke loneliness. When I feel lonely, I seek out lonely things.

But there I go again, projecting onto this poor whale who had no idea he would one day be part of my story. I admit there’s no evidence to suggest that humpbacks sing because they are lonely. But they do sing quite loudly, producing sounds up to nearly 190 decibels—on land, this is comparably to a jet engine at takeoff—and their lowest-frequency notes can carry for many miles underwater. Their songs seem designed to seek. What I find most compelling, though, is that the male humpbacks in the same population sing the same song. Over a season, and often longer, a song is shared, repeated, and riffed on. Individuals add their own personal touches—an extra whoop here, a deeper rumble there—and as these small variations spread, the song evolves, informed by its community. Researchers describe it as a collective behavior, something that demonstrates cultural transmission. In other words, our humpback isn’t really singing a solo. He’s part of a chorus.

WHEN I’M WITH GROUPS OF MEN, I feel like I’m trying to learn a new style of music. The social codes and rituals feel enigmatic at times. I suppose I’m like a juvenile humpback who is attempting to learn his population’s song but hasn’t yet got the hang of it. Still, I join in. I want to participate. I offer up my comments, questions, and thoughts in the hope that other men will pick up on them. Sometimes they hit; sometimes they flop.

Recently I went to a neighborhood bar in my small town, a place I hadn’t been to in a while.

“I missed you,” I said to the barman, my eyes big, my smile wide—effusive even for me. Confusion rippled across his face, then a twinge of secondhand embarrassment. It is true that I hardly know this man, couldn’t tell you his name. Yet he exudes calm, is warm and welcoming, and I was genuinely happy to see him.

With an uncharacteristically low-affect voice and a quick upward nod, he managed a polite response: “Uhh…me too, man.”

I looked down and busied myself with the beer menu.

LYING ON MY SOFA IN THE DARK, I listen to “Solo Whale” one more time and imagine this humpback off the coast of Bermuda, late at night, decades ago. He floats motionless in the water, head facing the ocean floor, fluke angled toward the distant stars above. A familiar melancholy rises through me with every looping cry and moan. Is he still out there, singing through the last of his long days?

Then I remind myself that this whale was never alone, not really. A humpback’s song can travel across immense stretches of ocean, reaching whales far beyond his pod. He may never meet all those who hear his song, but still its power radiates.