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Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?

#11

Post by theflyingelvis »

hobbitstan wrote: post #2

Men don’t need friends. Men need family. You have some casual friends at work then spend your quality time with family and maybe some childhood friends you kept in touch with. This is the natural way of things.

I don’t think that I agree. The two folks that I consider to be my BFF’s recently helped me (and my wife) through a difficult time. Each had a specific set of skills and were able to offer support and help in ways that my family wasn’t.

Cancer and cancer treatment was a bitch. The importance of friends (and family) became evident to me during that time. YMMV I guess.

Re: Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?

#13

Post by tptacek »

eatbitseveryday wrote: post #3

I wish I had some. I heard once, the best or only places to make friends as an adult are where encounters are repeated and casual, so like university and church. But I don’t attend either.

Go to a board game meetup.

Take a woodworking class.

Re: Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?

#16

Post by popularonion »

deodar wrote: post #8
hobbitstan wrote: post #2

Men don’t need friends. Men need family. You have some casual friends at work then spend your quality time with family and maybe some childhood friends you kept in touch with. This is the natural way of things.

I always saw men in my father's generation (he was born in the 1940s) have many close friends that would get together regularly. These close and decades old friendships are especially critical now that he's retired. Without them, he'd be completely isolated. A significant percentage of men not having any close friends feels like a recent development in the last 1-2 generations.

Going by the stories I’ve heard from my dad and uncles, they all had lots of male friends and drinking buddies, guys they knew from the union, the bowling league, the VFW, the Lions Club, etc. All those institutions that have either completely collapsed or become irrelevant for young people in America. I don’t think any of those guys went to church much.

The take that GP is expressing feels like a very post 1980s thing.

Re: Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?

#17

Post by klipt »

popularonion wrote: post #16
deodar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always saw men in my father's generation (he was born in the 1940s) have many close friends that would get together regularly. These close and decades old friendships are especially critical now that he's retired. Without them, he'd be completely isolated. A significant percentage of men not having any close friends feels like a recent development in the last 1-2 generations.

Going by the stories I’ve heard from my dad and uncles, they all had lots of male friends and drinking buddies, guys they knew from the union, the bowling league, the VFW, the Lions Club, etc. All those institutions that have either completely collapsed or become irrelevant for young people in America. I don’t think any of those guys went to church much. The take that GP is expressing feels like a very post 1980s thi…

I wonder how much of it is men having to move more for work than in the past. Easier to stay in contact with your highschool friends if you can all find good jobs in your hometown. If that friend group overlaps with the bowling league and the union, so much the better. Much harder to join a bowling league and make friends from scratch with no pre existing connections to the social fabric.

Re: Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?

#18

Post by ReptileMan »

It is really not hard. Find decent people with which you have something in common. Give them some loyalty and support and if you get some back - you have friends. With years they turn into close friends.

Men's friendships are forged they don't just happen.

The town - 2010:

- I need your help. I can't tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we're gonna hurt some people.

- Whose car are we gonna take?

Re: Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?

#19

Post by hardware2win »

hobbitstan wrote: post #2

Men don’t need friends. Men need family. You have some casual friends at work then spend your quality time with family and maybe some childhood friends you kept in touch with. This is the natural way of things.

It sounds sad

If that was said by married man then I'd joke that he needs a little longer leash

Re: Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?

#20

Post by atoav »

eatbitseveryday wrote: post #3

I wish I had some. I heard once, the best or only places to make friends as an adult are where encounters are repeated and casual, so like university and church. But I don’t attend either.

Art exhibitions and gallery openings, the gym, a sports tournament, every kind of society, concerts, bands, club or voluntary activity, ...

If you don't put yourself into the places where you get to know new people and don't spend some fraction of your time there you might not find friends.

Getting to know people is not luck, it happens when you want to do it. Getting to know people is the first step of finding friends (or relationships for that matter).

There is enough places to go, just pick one you like and put yourself out there.

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