Has anyone actually read the studies linked by the author to back up his drivel? I'll save you some time: the 2007 study isn't valid even by the low levels of scientific burden required for psychological studies (it's entirely based on self-reporting), and the 1982 study support the opposite conclusion to the author's. In fact, the 1982 study [0] finds that men and women simply have different kinds of friendships, where men are likely to only engage in emotional sharing with their closest friends, and women are more likely to engage in emotional sharing with all their friends.
This brings me on to challenging the true point of the article: slating the traditional male gender role. It's no accident that the author turns to the authority of feminists for perspectives on men -- despite that being so laughly outside the remit of feminism -- because the entire point, unstated but present, throughout the article is that women have 'got it right' and men should be more like women. In lieu of any studies which actually support his point (note that only the first two studies in the article actually even discuss his point about male friendships, the rest are an irrelevance), he instead uses anecdote as evidence for a point neither study can support, and then goes on to blame the entire mess on the traditional male gender role. I won't defend the male gender role, because I have no stock in doing so, but I would at least ask that if something's going to be blamed for mens' terrible friendships then we at least provide some proof that men do indeed have terrible friendships.
Lastly, the article, like so many in the media, is yet another argument that encourages you to accept its faulty form by providing you with a false dichotomy: the argument begs the question that either type of friend (the emotional numerous friends of women, or the close few friends of men) is a superior type of friend, links some 'evidence' which doesn't support its point, and then encourages you to ask yourself whether men or women 'have it right' before even bothering to prove if there's anything to actually get right in this situation.
I will say one thing though: if this is the kind of stuff Men's Journal prints, then either its readership is mostly women, or men sure do love self-flagellation.
> men and women simply have different kinds of friendships
I think you nailed it there. This matches what I've been picking up from books by Deborah Tannen, an author recommended to me by a guy at work.
Tannen describes men and women as having two massively different styles of communication. Communication is not at all addressed in the attached article, yet, when I perceive the dialogue in the article, it matches Tannen's model to a T. In a nutshell: men communicate in the domain of independence while women communicate about intimacy. If you remember _nothing_ else about what I write here, remember those two words: intimacy vs. independence.
So for example, when the wife in the article repeatedly asks for "dish," that's a blatant signal of intimacy. She wants to be in on secrets. She wants intimacy with her husband and is sending out "sonar" to see how intimate her husband is with his friends. Even her use of the idiosyncratic term "dish" and expecting her husband to pick up on it can be perceived as calls for intimacy.
Meanwhile, when the author describes "activity" or "convenience" friends, (with an undeserving negative air), he's failing to perceive that these types of friendship allow the men to preserve their independence. It also explains why the men felt intruded upon when the women scheduled an activity for them. The author perceives it in the parent-child spectrum, which is okay, but not insightful imo. Tannen's model of men's independence I find superior. It also explains the author's ignoring phone calls from his friend - it's a meta-communication about preserving his own independence.
Just to get meta about publishing in the 2010s, the article is a smorgasbord of irritainment, pseudo-psychology and self-doubt. Certainly not the kind of thing most men would find useful, valuable or insightful. Although that certainly doesn't it make the author "gay" as someone below suggested! However, this article is neither empowering through interdependence nor through independence, just a slab of rage press with a bit of correlation without causation statistics. (Can't you just hear an editor saying "Great, now finish up with some stats to back it up.")
So let's read Tannen's books to help our relationships and communication along, then get back to talking about Linux and signal processing and shit.
> because the entire point, unstated but present, throughout the article is that women have 'got it right' and men should be more like women .... true point of the article: slating the traditional male gender role.
That was not my reading at all and on re-reading I still can't see it.
Then Liz would let out a big theatrical groan that said, in essence, What kind of friendship is that?
I thought it was a great friendship, if I thought about it at all.
To me, this suggests that there is a model for male friendships that works perfectly well. I perceived the problem to be that not all men are good at implementing or maintaining this model, especially over distance.
The author acknowledges that the female model isn't necessarily the single optimal model:
At the same time, a wave of feminist sociologists and psychologists began describing female friendship, with all its confessional talk, as the optimal model. Many feminist thinkers now see those views as overly simplistic.
> ...before even bothering to prove if there's anything to actually get right in this situation
But there is something to get right! Not feeling lonely.
> Has anyone actually read the studies linked by the author to back up his drivel?
No. I skimmed over that bit and didn't feel it was actually necessary for the point of the article. The author spoke to me on a personal level, through a narrative that I can relate to. They didn't need to prove anything to me: speaking to my lived experience was more than enough to make me think.
There are whole field of scientific study based almost entirely on self-reports. As such, there has been much research done on its veracity, which has shown that it is largely valid and reliable when reporting on simple things (like friendship behavior) so long as it's anonymous, does not require introspection(1), and there is no fear of reprisal(2).
The 2007 study meets all those requirements, so I see no scientific reason to question its results.
Also, I can't think of any practical methodology for studying friendship behaviorally - but would love to be proven wrong.
1. Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Funder, D. C. (2007). Psychology as the science of self-reports and finger movements: Whatever happened to actual behavior?. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(4), 396-403. Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Funder, D. C. (2007). http://users.business.uconn.edu/jgoodman/mgmt%206201%20assig...
2. Brener ND, Billy JOG, Grady WR. Assessment of factors affecting the validity of self-reported health-risk behavior among adolescents: evidence from the scientific literature. Journal of Adolescent Health 2003;33:436-457. Summary at http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/TonkaCares/RwR/Documents/Val...
I'd sooner say that men and women _currently_ have different kinds of relationships, for the most part. For men who have been conditioned toward independence but who have greater emotional needs than that model allows, the independence model can feel repressive. Likewise, I've known a number of women who lean more toward independence than intimacy. (This switching of relationship models seems to happen more than a little among the trans-men and trans-women that I know.) It isn't clear to me that the relationship categories are linked to anything other than cultural/societal conditioning.
Listening to feminists talk about relationships is actually helpful, in that by acknowledging the basic equality of women, we as men can allow ourselves to form the kind of relationships that we each want individually, rather than the kind that is trained into us from childhood. Escaping from societal pigeonholes can be good for men as well as women.
I don't think he attacked the traditional male gender role. In fact, I think the article supports your general opinion. it starts by entertaining the idea of the male friendship deficiency, and even giving some anecdotal evidence.
But then, it turns around. He could enjoy his friendships without sharing "deep feelings", just centering around activities. That's what the ending means, when the wife asks him for entertaining gossips, and he can't tell anyone.
OK, now let’s have some fun. Let’s talk about sex. Let’s talk about women. Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything.
What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish people wouldn’t get so mad at them.
Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to.
A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys.
But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it’s a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it’s a man.
When a couple has an argument, they may think it’s about money or power or sex, or how to raise the kids, or whatever. What they’re really saying to each other, though, without realizing it, is this:
> That's because nearly all research into healthy aging has found that the key to a long, happy life is not diet or exercise but strong social connections – that is, friendships. Loneliness accelerates age-related declines in cognition and motor function, while a single good friend has been shown to make as much as a 10-year difference in overall life expectancy.
This makes me sad :( My mother passed away from cancer in 2001 after 16 years of marriage to my father. Their marriage was one of those ideal marriages that most people don't think really exists; they were truly each other's best friend and were incredibly happy together.
Now that my sister is finishing college and I'm in grad school, my dad goes to work for long hours each day and comes home to an empty house. He doesn't socialize much more than going to the coffee shop on weekend mornings.
I don't know what to do about this; I live three hours away and can't visit every weekend, and my sister is getting married soon and moving away as well. He's not opposed to dating, but the last time he dated was nearly a decade ago, and I know he doesn't want to date because of the sheer sadness he still feels from my mother's death. He has mentioned it would be really nice to have a companion though.
I need ideas. Solitude isn't a good way to spend the rest of one's life, and I really want him to be happy. This article has confirmed my fears about loneliness even more, and I want to help him.
This article makes me cringe. Is the author gay or a pseudonym for a girl?
The article seems to extol what most would call "girly" friendship--continuous contact, social gossip, etc. Lots of attention to little things.
Most guys I know of tend to equate true friendship along the lines of "will help you bury the body and won't ask questions." Male friendship tends to get tested around helping with big, infrequent things--death of parent/spouse, get somebody to hospital, cover for you when you did something monumentally stupid.
Men tend to forgive the "didn't hang out last week" but won't ever forgive things like "didn't show up for your dad's funeral".
Which is why I have plenty of female friends to do everyday gossip and chatting with and a few male friends to bury bodies with. It tends to work out pretty well.
Maybe I'm a weird guy, but I find that I really need people with whom I can chat about things that are happening but are of no real consequence. Sometimes you just need someone to tell "Dude, something mildly interesting just happened!"
It's the whole "The only things worth complaining about are things that aren't worth solving" philosophy. Guy friends tend to handle those poorly. Lady friends relish it.
The article seems to extol what most would call "girly" friendship--continuous contact, social gossip, etc. Lots of attention to little things.
This happens within the article - the writer's wife essentially shames him for his "surfing friendship" not being like her friendships.
I've encountered this too, as I'm sure many men have - being criticized or blamed by family or spouses for not talking enough or not talking about "the right things" when spending time with friends. And you're left asking yourself "was I doing it wrong?" when I come home from hanging out with friends and playing video games or hacking or whatever.
The author explicitly acknowledges that the traditional "girly" friendship may not be the optimal. And implies that male friendships can be deeper than shared activities without turning into such relationships:
> At the same time, a wave of feminist sociologists and psychologists began describing female friendship, with all its confessional talk, as the optimal model.
> Many feminist thinkers now see those views as overly simplistic. And as recent news about gay marriage shows, America is growing more comfortable with homosexuality.
I don't think the article extols that particular type of friendship. I am surprised the article gives you that impression at all.
Not sure if I understand what you're saying, but if I do, that's got to be offensive to at least two large groups of people.
At the end of the day, there are not just gay men, straight men and girls. Within the straight men there are subsets who equate a lot of social contact, gossip etc. with friendship, just as there are gay men or girls who don't equate this with friendship.
The "most guys I know of" thing is probably just confirmation bias based on social circles and career choices.
^^ This. I know I am there for my friends and I know that they are there for me. That already gives me a feeling of connectedness. I do not need to see them on a daily basis.
This article raises an issue that terrifies me; over-reliance on one's wife for friendship. I love my wife and I do consider her my best friend, which is wonderful...but now that I no longer live in the same city as my closest friends, I don't have any really strong local bonds other than with her. She's planning a trip out of town in a few weeks, and I've already started figuring out what I'll do: maybe go on a bike ride, play some video games, clean our apartment, go see a movie, order takeout, etc. None of those plans involve friends. Probably not a good sign. =/
It's not exactly difficult to make loose friends or fun acquaintances, but maintaining and strengthening those into deep, close friendships feels nearly impossible.
I am in a similar situation, except I moved to another country with my long-term girlfriend. I know what you mean, but I think all it takes is time. You must have met someone recently in your new city? A neighbor? Is there a "hacker space" in your city to which you could go to a meetup to meet similar people?
It's almost like dating, but for friendship. Try to find people you think you'd get along with, meet them, and invite them to do things. Sure, you'll have to put yourself out there a bit, but after the first few times you don't even think about that anymore.
Yeah this is clearly a American issue. It's certainly not true in Asian/South Asian countries, sure we lose touch with friends but whenever we meet there is an instant and unmistakable bond.
When I moved to the US, I couldn't understand why Americans were so "distant". I don't have the same friendships with them as I do with others. Sad but true.
Many of my male friendships do seem to resonate around convenience (i.e. we help each other) or activities.
If you take that away...I'm unsure what the depth is.
This could just be me though.
I do have friendships with females who are nothing like me, which are more around just...fun/chatting/hanging out.
But either way, friendships do take work/effort - and sometimes you need to push that along a bit, and think gee, I haven't seen "XYZ" in a while, let's organise a catchup.
I find what matters most in my friendships is being on the same page in terms of mindset, because then anything is enjoyable. I'm a social guy, I have lots of "friends", but I really only have three TRUE friends. I called my buddy up (one of the three) that I haven't seen for 2 years, nothing was awkward, talked for a few hours like nothing happened, all because we never changed who we were.
All three of my friends have completely different stances on various topics, topics that usually divide people, in terms of subjects like religion and politics. The thing is, even though we don't agree on much of anything really, we take pleasure in endlessly bantering between one another and "fighting" our opinions. At the end of the day though, nobody is hurt. You always end up learning something new, or exploring some other outlook.
The key is to be friends with mentally strong people. Friends that are open to whatever, whenever.
I hate being friends with people who have defined things that they like, or don't like, for no real reason. My friends and I's take on life is that the only thing that truly matters are relationships, everything else is mainly either a vehicle for fun, or to support yourself, so doing things isn't a struggle because nobody holds any personal or cultural bias against anything.
We like exploring things just by virtue of curiosity and it's nearly always a fun experience.
Just plain old hanging out like as if we were kids.
It really resonates with me too at a personal level but at the same time it's quite surprising if this is indeed so widespread across men.
I'm an extreme introvert with few, if any, close friends and relationships or a strong desire for such, and it has always befuddled me how smooth and effortless many friendships look from the outside. The whole concept of "hanging out" without some common ground or a common activity or goal in mind is almost foreign to me. I can "hang out" with a friend I haven't seen for ages to catch up with what's been going on with each other but I can't see how this is sustainable on a weekly basis or more.
Age is also a big factor. It seems that most friendships go back to childhood, teenage or college years. The older you get, the harder is to make new relationships that go past the plain acquaintance stage. The prospect of building a social network (in the offline sense of the word) from scratch in your mid thirties, say after moving to the other side of the country or the world, sounds intimidating even to normal extroverted people I've talked to, let alone chronic loners.
While I agree with most of the author's points, I think it's missing two key aspects. Intellectual curiosity doesn't continue for everyone (I want to scratch my eyes out just watching football and never discussing anything of intrigue) and some guys don't know how to be friends outside of a group.
1. I don't find most my old friends interesting. The guys I have stuff in common with are mostly work connections/guys that understand the plight of the entrepreneur and we don't actually hang out. Activity friends are cool but like most my friends from college, it increasingly feels like a chore.
The few friends that have any depth to them live out of town. That said, in the future we have email and don't have to physically see each other all the time to coddle our friendships.
2. Some dudes just never learned how to have one-on-one friends outside of a group. This is by far the most common problem I see that transcends male friendships. If you befriend someone as an adult that you can regularly carry on a conversation with, without outside help, take note - they may become your new brosive.
Yeah, and/or people are totally fucked on average when it comes to sustaining deep, long-lasting relationships. Go figure. That shit is hard. Hard. Like: fulfillment, actualization, self-discipline, happiness, etc., etc.
Do men suck at friendship? Of course. Just like they suck at vying w/ their own mortality. It's hardly a gender thing.
Start with a better narrative and you'll end up with a better answer.
I don't think men are bad at friendship I do think it takes more for them to develop the kind of deep friendship between men that the article laments are missing. I have a handful of good friends who mostly live in different cities now but we still keep in touch and make a point to get together whenever we cross paths. These all came out of things like high school cross country or roommates over several years. Point being I think there needs to be a strong shared experience over several years for men to get to that point.
The sorts of things described in the article usually don't run deep enough or last long enough to cultivate a longer lasting friendship.
I feel this, my chat group I've had with friends from work for the last year just went dead. We bonded strongly at work, in work, and when work didn't connect us we disconnected. This year I made more effort than ever to make friends, but it just hasn't stuck yet. I'm not giving up though.
My formative years were somewhat less than ideal (moving every three months, abusive environment, fat before fat was normal, nerdy, etc). I always blamed not being able to make lasting relationships on that. I've now come to the conclusion that 80% of why I suck at friendship is innate, and 20% is learned.
I've tried hobbies and meetups to no avail; I just wind up sitting in the corner. I think this is where the 20% mentioned hurts. Even if I manage to get out of that corner (a rare event, but it does happen), I don't know how to take a conversation beyond "How's it going?"
Where's the Facebook for actually finding new friends?
Like boardgames (ones on boardgamegeek.com, not Monopoly)? It's a great hobby that requires interaction. It's great for ice-breaking imo. Most men need ice broken to make a connection, alcohol helps too. Some shared common thread like kids in the same school helps a lot. Joining a sports league is good too if that's your cup of tea, I've met a number of people that way. It's a good no-pressure way of interacting with your teammates.
At the pool is one I've heard mentioned here, though it's somewhat meetuppy. I think going somewhere explicitly "to make friends" would put most people off, it's the sort of thing that needs to be approached obliquely.
This isn't so much innate. It is most likely an anxiety problem. You can overcome it but it isn't going to be easy as it takes going far out of your comfort zone.
I've realized that many men (I know) want to talk about their feelings, frustrations, relationships, insecurities etc., when given a good example and opening up a little at first. I learned to do that a couple of years ago, when I was going through difficult times. Went to meet a friend for a couple of beers, started slowly talking, without whining or complaining, about things that make me insecure and we realized opening up and talking about all kinds of "non-manly" things that made us feel bad. That friend relationship deepened into totally new level and since then I've gone through same thing with many of my real friends.
1) Open up,
2) Share,
3) Listen,
4) Care.
It felt really great to get a SMS a week later saying "how are things and are you feeling better?"
Not saying that I am a perfect friend or Mr. Empathy, but I feel that I am a little bit better person than I used to be.
I would like to take a moment to remind everyone that this article refers primarily to non-poor white men in the OECD, and that most people are not WEIRD:
This article implies that living a long life should be the ultimate driving goal behind our actions.
What's wrong with "convenience", "mentor", or "activity" friendships? They sound perfectly logical and reasonable to me. Just because these kind of friendships might not contribute as much to longevity doesn't make them wrong.
I didn't take away from my reading, that those friendships weren't valuable, but that there could be another stronger connection category that could be made which would be valuable as well.
Health, happiness, & longevity are known to be intermixed. The way I read the article, increased longevity is a more measurable proxy for health & happiness.
The problem with "convenience", "mentor", or "activity" friendships, as the article later explains, is that they tend to rapidly go away when the convenience, mentorship or particular activity ceases.
If you want a long-term friendship, then you'd need to push those relationships beyond the convenience/mentorship/activity to have more than that single tie that may randomly disappear.
As a male with more close female confidants/friends than male, I find it interesting that this article in no way acknowledged the possibility of a platonic male/female friendship.
I wrote a big long spiel about the comments in this thread, but i'll summarize to save everyone some time.
The culture-centricity in this thread is kind of sickening, and as hackers I hope that everyone who is reading through it remembers to attempt to take things as a neutral observer and apply scientific methods to your findings; and take anecdotal evidence at it's worth.
Oh! As a hacker I was planning on calling bullshit and doing my own thing as normal. I'll try it your way...
Hmmm... it's all anecdotal including the original post and the citations... there is no scientific method present... so it's all bullshit and I'll just do things my way as normal.
"In Steppenwolf's case, the fact is that, like all hybrid creatures, he lived with the feeling of being sometimes a wolf, sometimes a human being. However, as a wolf he was forever conscious of his human side lying in wait, observing, judging and condemning him; just as the wolf did when he was a human being. For example, whenever Harry in his capacity as a human being had some lovely idea, experience some fine and noble sentiment, or did a so-called good deed, the wolf in him would bare its teeth and laugh him utterly to scorn, indicating how ludicrously out of character all this fine play-acting was in a wild animal of the steppes, a wolf who at heart knew perfectly well that his real pleasure lay in stalking alone across the plains, occasionally blood or pursuing a she-wolf. Seen thus from the wolf's point of view, every human action became frighteningly comic and self-conscious, vain and inane. But it was exactly the same when Harry felt and behaved like a wolf, when he showed other people his teeth or became murderously hostile to humankind as a whole, hating all its hypocritical and degenerate manners and customs. For then it was the human side of him that lay in wait, observing the wolf, calling him a brute and a beast, spoiling and souring all the pleasure he was taking in the straightforward life of a healthy untamed wolf...
His position was a lonely one; it was uncanny the way the world left him to his own devices. Other people were longer of concern to him; he wasn't even concerned about himself. The air around him was getting thinner and thinner the more solitary he became, severing all contact with others, and he was slowly suffocating as a result. For the situation now was different. No longer his desire and goal, solitude and independence were a fate he was condemned to. He had made his magic wish and there was no going back on it. However strongly he yearned to re-establish contact with others, however willing he was to hold out his arms to embrace them, it was of no avail: they now left him alone. Yet there was no indication that people hated him or found him repugnant. On the contrary; he had lots of friends. Lots of people liked him. But friendliness and sympathy were the only reactions he ever encountered. People would invite him to their homes, give him presents, write him nice letters, but nobody was able or willing to share his life. He was no breathing the air that the lonely breathe, living in an atmosphere that was still, adrift from the world around him. No amount of yearning or goodwill had any effect on his inability to form relationships."
[+] [-] elohesra|12 years ago|reply
This brings me on to challenging the true point of the article: slating the traditional male gender role. It's no accident that the author turns to the authority of feminists for perspectives on men -- despite that being so laughly outside the remit of feminism -- because the entire point, unstated but present, throughout the article is that women have 'got it right' and men should be more like women. In lieu of any studies which actually support his point (note that only the first two studies in the article actually even discuss his point about male friendships, the rest are an irrelevance), he instead uses anecdote as evidence for a point neither study can support, and then goes on to blame the entire mess on the traditional male gender role. I won't defend the male gender role, because I have no stock in doing so, but I would at least ask that if something's going to be blamed for mens' terrible friendships then we at least provide some proof that men do indeed have terrible friendships.
Lastly, the article, like so many in the media, is yet another argument that encourages you to accept its faulty form by providing you with a false dichotomy: the argument begs the question that either type of friend (the emotional numerous friends of women, or the close few friends of men) is a superior type of friend, links some 'evidence' which doesn't support its point, and then encourages you to ask yourself whether men or women 'have it right' before even bothering to prove if there's anything to actually get right in this situation.
I will say one thing though: if this is the kind of stuff Men's Journal prints, then either its readership is mostly women, or men sure do love self-flagellation.
[0] http://www.peplaulab.ucla.edu/Peplau_Lab/Publications_files/...
[+] [-] diydsp|12 years ago|reply
I think you nailed it there. This matches what I've been picking up from books by Deborah Tannen, an author recommended to me by a guy at work.
Tannen describes men and women as having two massively different styles of communication. Communication is not at all addressed in the attached article, yet, when I perceive the dialogue in the article, it matches Tannen's model to a T. In a nutshell: men communicate in the domain of independence while women communicate about intimacy. If you remember _nothing_ else about what I write here, remember those two words: intimacy vs. independence.
So for example, when the wife in the article repeatedly asks for "dish," that's a blatant signal of intimacy. She wants to be in on secrets. She wants intimacy with her husband and is sending out "sonar" to see how intimate her husband is with his friends. Even her use of the idiosyncratic term "dish" and expecting her husband to pick up on it can be perceived as calls for intimacy.
Meanwhile, when the author describes "activity" or "convenience" friends, (with an undeserving negative air), he's failing to perceive that these types of friendship allow the men to preserve their independence. It also explains why the men felt intruded upon when the women scheduled an activity for them. The author perceives it in the parent-child spectrum, which is okay, but not insightful imo. Tannen's model of men's independence I find superior. It also explains the author's ignoring phone calls from his friend - it's a meta-communication about preserving his own independence.
Just to get meta about publishing in the 2010s, the article is a smorgasbord of irritainment, pseudo-psychology and self-doubt. Certainly not the kind of thing most men would find useful, valuable or insightful. Although that certainly doesn't it make the author "gay" as someone below suggested! However, this article is neither empowering through interdependence nor through independence, just a slab of rage press with a bit of correlation without causation statistics. (Can't you just hear an editor saying "Great, now finish up with some stats to back it up.")
So let's read Tannen's books to help our relationships and communication along, then get back to talking about Linux and signal processing and shit.
[+] [-] aaren|12 years ago|reply
That was not my reading at all and on re-reading I still can't see it.
Then Liz would let out a big theatrical groan that said, in essence, What kind of friendship is that?
I thought it was a great friendship, if I thought about it at all.
To me, this suggests that there is a model for male friendships that works perfectly well. I perceived the problem to be that not all men are good at implementing or maintaining this model, especially over distance.
The author acknowledges that the female model isn't necessarily the single optimal model:
At the same time, a wave of feminist sociologists and psychologists began describing female friendship, with all its confessional talk, as the optimal model. Many feminist thinkers now see those views as overly simplistic.
> ...before even bothering to prove if there's anything to actually get right in this situation
But there is something to get right! Not feeling lonely.
> Has anyone actually read the studies linked by the author to back up his drivel?
No. I skimmed over that bit and didn't feel it was actually necessary for the point of the article. The author spoke to me on a personal level, through a narrative that I can relate to. They didn't need to prove anything to me: speaking to my lived experience was more than enough to make me think.
[+] [-] thelettere|12 years ago|reply
The 2007 study meets all those requirements, so I see no scientific reason to question its results.
Also, I can't think of any practical methodology for studying friendship behaviorally - but would love to be proven wrong.
1. Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Funder, D. C. (2007). Psychology as the science of self-reports and finger movements: Whatever happened to actual behavior?. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(4), 396-403. Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Funder, D. C. (2007). http://users.business.uconn.edu/jgoodman/mgmt%206201%20assig...
2. Brener ND, Billy JOG, Grady WR. Assessment of factors affecting the validity of self-reported health-risk behavior among adolescents: evidence from the scientific literature. Journal of Adolescent Health 2003;33:436-457. Summary at http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/TonkaCares/RwR/Documents/Val...
[+] [-] alex_doom|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bezoar|12 years ago|reply
Listening to feminists talk about relationships is actually helpful, in that by acknowledging the basic equality of women, we as men can allow ourselves to form the kind of relationships that we each want individually, rather than the kind that is trained into us from childhood. Escaping from societal pigeonholes can be good for men as well as women.
[+] [-] mvaliente2001|12 years ago|reply
But then, it turns around. He could enjoy his friendships without sharing "deep feelings", just centering around activities. That's what the ending means, when the wife asks him for entertaining gossips, and he can't tell anyone.
[+] [-] return0|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanccox|12 years ago|reply
OK, now let’s have some fun. Let’s talk about sex. Let’s talk about women. Freud said he didn’t know what women wanted. I know what women want. They want a whole lot of people to talk to. What do they want to talk about? They want to talk about everything.
What do men want? They want a lot of pals, and they wish people wouldn’t get so mad at them.
Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to.
A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahos. The Kennedys.
But most of us, if we get married nowadays, are just one more person for the other person. The groom gets one more pal, but it’s a woman. The woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it’s a man.
When a couple has an argument, they may think it’s about money or power or sex, or how to raise the kids, or whatever. What they’re really saying to each other, though, without realizing it, is this:
“You are not enough people!”
[+] [-] Xcelerate|12 years ago|reply
This makes me sad :( My mother passed away from cancer in 2001 after 16 years of marriage to my father. Their marriage was one of those ideal marriages that most people don't think really exists; they were truly each other's best friend and were incredibly happy together.
Now that my sister is finishing college and I'm in grad school, my dad goes to work for long hours each day and comes home to an empty house. He doesn't socialize much more than going to the coffee shop on weekend mornings.
I don't know what to do about this; I live three hours away and can't visit every weekend, and my sister is getting married soon and moving away as well. He's not opposed to dating, but the last time he dated was nearly a decade ago, and I know he doesn't want to date because of the sheer sadness he still feels from my mother's death. He has mentioned it would be really nice to have a companion though.
I need ideas. Solitude isn't a good way to spend the rest of one's life, and I really want him to be happy. This article has confirmed my fears about loneliness even more, and I want to help him.
[+] [-] bsder|12 years ago|reply
This article makes me cringe. Is the author gay or a pseudonym for a girl?
The article seems to extol what most would call "girly" friendship--continuous contact, social gossip, etc. Lots of attention to little things.
Most guys I know of tend to equate true friendship along the lines of "will help you bury the body and won't ask questions." Male friendship tends to get tested around helping with big, infrequent things--death of parent/spouse, get somebody to hospital, cover for you when you did something monumentally stupid.
Men tend to forgive the "didn't hang out last week" but won't ever forgive things like "didn't show up for your dad's funeral".
[+] [-] Swizec|12 years ago|reply
Which is why I have plenty of female friends to do everyday gossip and chatting with and a few male friends to bury bodies with. It tends to work out pretty well.
Maybe I'm a weird guy, but I find that I really need people with whom I can chat about things that are happening but are of no real consequence. Sometimes you just need someone to tell "Dude, something mildly interesting just happened!"
It's the whole "The only things worth complaining about are things that aren't worth solving" philosophy. Guy friends tend to handle those poorly. Lady friends relish it.
[+] [-] colechristensen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theorique|12 years ago|reply
This happens within the article - the writer's wife essentially shames him for his "surfing friendship" not being like her friendships.
I've encountered this too, as I'm sure many men have - being criticized or blamed by family or spouses for not talking enough or not talking about "the right things" when spending time with friends. And you're left asking yourself "was I doing it wrong?" when I come home from hanging out with friends and playing video games or hacking or whatever.
[+] [-] interpol_p|12 years ago|reply
> At the same time, a wave of feminist sociologists and psychologists began describing female friendship, with all its confessional talk, as the optimal model.
> Many feminist thinkers now see those views as overly simplistic. And as recent news about gay marriage shows, America is growing more comfortable with homosexuality.
I don't think the article extols that particular type of friendship. I am surprised the article gives you that impression at all.
[+] [-] joshschreuder|12 years ago|reply
At the end of the day, there are not just gay men, straight men and girls. Within the straight men there are subsets who equate a lot of social contact, gossip etc. with friendship, just as there are gay men or girls who don't equate this with friendship.
The "most guys I know of" thing is probably just confirmation bias based on social circles and career choices.
[+] [-] crummy|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onnoonno|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gadders|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ezy|12 years ago|reply
You are officially part of the problem.
[+] [-] rybosome|12 years ago|reply
It's not exactly difficult to make loose friends or fun acquaintances, but maintaining and strengthening those into deep, close friendships feels nearly impossible.
[+] [-] chill1|12 years ago|reply
It's almost like dating, but for friendship. Try to find people you think you'd get along with, meet them, and invite them to do things. Sure, you'll have to put yourself out there a bit, but after the first few times you don't even think about that anymore.
[+] [-] ashwinaj|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] victorhooi|12 years ago|reply
Many of my male friendships do seem to resonate around convenience (i.e. we help each other) or activities.
If you take that away...I'm unsure what the depth is.
This could just be me though.
I do have friendships with females who are nothing like me, which are more around just...fun/chatting/hanging out.
But either way, friendships do take work/effort - and sometimes you need to push that along a bit, and think gee, I haven't seen "XYZ" in a while, let's organise a catchup.
[+] [-] EC1|12 years ago|reply
All three of my friends have completely different stances on various topics, topics that usually divide people, in terms of subjects like religion and politics. The thing is, even though we don't agree on much of anything really, we take pleasure in endlessly bantering between one another and "fighting" our opinions. At the end of the day though, nobody is hurt. You always end up learning something new, or exploring some other outlook.
The key is to be friends with mentally strong people. Friends that are open to whatever, whenever.
I hate being friends with people who have defined things that they like, or don't like, for no real reason. My friends and I's take on life is that the only thing that truly matters are relationships, everything else is mainly either a vehicle for fun, or to support yourself, so doing things isn't a struggle because nobody holds any personal or cultural bias against anything.
We like exploring things just by virtue of curiosity and it's nearly always a fun experience.
Just plain old hanging out like as if we were kids.
[+] [-] reinhardt|12 years ago|reply
I'm an extreme introvert with few, if any, close friends and relationships or a strong desire for such, and it has always befuddled me how smooth and effortless many friendships look from the outside. The whole concept of "hanging out" without some common ground or a common activity or goal in mind is almost foreign to me. I can "hang out" with a friend I haven't seen for ages to catch up with what's been going on with each other but I can't see how this is sustainable on a weekly basis or more.
Age is also a big factor. It seems that most friendships go back to childhood, teenage or college years. The older you get, the harder is to make new relationships that go past the plain acquaintance stage. The prospect of building a social network (in the offline sense of the word) from scratch in your mid thirties, say after moving to the other side of the country or the world, sounds intimidating even to normal extroverted people I've talked to, let alone chronic loners.
[+] [-] mercurialshark|12 years ago|reply
1. I don't find most my old friends interesting. The guys I have stuff in common with are mostly work connections/guys that understand the plight of the entrepreneur and we don't actually hang out. Activity friends are cool but like most my friends from college, it increasingly feels like a chore.
The few friends that have any depth to them live out of town. That said, in the future we have email and don't have to physically see each other all the time to coddle our friendships.
2. Some dudes just never learned how to have one-on-one friends outside of a group. This is by far the most common problem I see that transcends male friendships. If you befriend someone as an adult that you can regularly carry on a conversation with, without outside help, take note - they may become your new brosive.
[+] [-] ryanklee|12 years ago|reply
Do men suck at friendship? Of course. Just like they suck at vying w/ their own mortality. It's hardly a gender thing.
Start with a better narrative and you'll end up with a better answer.
[+] [-] pmorici|12 years ago|reply
The sorts of things described in the article usually don't run deep enough or last long enough to cultivate a longer lasting friendship.
[+] [-] sosuke|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SoftwareMaven|12 years ago|reply
I've tried hobbies and meetups to no avail; I just wind up sitting in the corner. I think this is where the 20% mentioned hurts. Even if I manage to get out of that corner (a rare event, but it does happen), I don't know how to take a conversation beyond "How's it going?"
Where's the Facebook for actually finding new friends?
[+] [-] zequel|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aestra|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jzzskijj|12 years ago|reply
1) Open up, 2) Share, 3) Listen, 4) Care.
It felt really great to get a SMS a week later saying "how are things and are you feeling better?"
Not saying that I am a perfect friend or Mr. Empathy, but I feel that I am a little bit better person than I used to be.
[+] [-] scythe|12 years ago|reply
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/jvt002/brainmind/readings/h...
In particular attempting to draw conclusions about innate (genetic) behavior from this skewed sample is highly subject to confounding.
[+] [-] wyager|12 years ago|reply
What's wrong with "convenience", "mentor", or "activity" friendships? They sound perfectly logical and reasonable to me. Just because these kind of friendships might not contribute as much to longevity doesn't make them wrong.
[+] [-] sosuke|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PeterisP|12 years ago|reply
If you want a long-term friendship, then you'd need to push those relationships beyond the convenience/mentorship/activity to have more than that single tie that may randomly disappear.
[+] [-] nailer|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sardonicbryan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cperciva|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] serf|12 years ago|reply
The culture-centricity in this thread is kind of sickening, and as hackers I hope that everyone who is reading through it remembers to attempt to take things as a neutral observer and apply scientific methods to your findings; and take anecdotal evidence at it's worth.
[+] [-] lotsofcows|12 years ago|reply
Hmmm... it's all anecdotal including the original post and the citations... there is no scientific method present... so it's all bullshit and I'll just do things my way as normal.
There's been some interesting discussion though.
[+] [-] darylteo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thatphatness|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] roymurdock|12 years ago|reply
His position was a lonely one; it was uncanny the way the world left him to his own devices. Other people were longer of concern to him; he wasn't even concerned about himself. The air around him was getting thinner and thinner the more solitary he became, severing all contact with others, and he was slowly suffocating as a result. For the situation now was different. No longer his desire and goal, solitude and independence were a fate he was condemned to. He had made his magic wish and there was no going back on it. However strongly he yearned to re-establish contact with others, however willing he was to hold out his arms to embrace them, it was of no avail: they now left him alone. Yet there was no indication that people hated him or found him repugnant. On the contrary; he had lots of friends. Lots of people liked him. But friendliness and sympathy were the only reactions he ever encountered. People would invite him to their homes, give him presents, write him nice letters, but nobody was able or willing to share his life. He was no breathing the air that the lonely breathe, living in an atmosphere that was still, adrift from the world around him. No amount of yearning or goodwill had any effect on his inability to form relationships."
Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse