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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?

#51

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

ReptileMan wrote: post #18

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 t…

I have a friend I've known since I was 16 and I'd do absolutely anything for that man.

But you damned well better believe I would ask questions and make decisions based upon the answers. I'd probably also talk him down from doing something stupid.

I like your point about male friendships being forged (it's very true), but your example is a non-sequitur.

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

#52

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

brozaman wrote: post #35
Eleison23 wrote: post #28

Many of us are victims of feminism to some degree. I managed to make lasting friends in high school with some gay boys. But after high school, I preferred to hang around straight people, and a straight guy won't get too close--because it might be gay? I was subjected to decades of gender-based emotional abuse and so my relationships with women are also poor. This is a direct result of feminists and feminism. I develo…

> Many of us are victims of feminism to some degree. A male doesn't have male friends and this is femenism's fault? > But after high school, I preferred to hang around straight people, and a straight guy won't get too close--because it might be gay? Sounds like you have some serious insecurities... One of my best friends is gay, I don't think anyone ever thought I'm gay because I hang out with him, but if they did I…

> I don't think anyone ever thought I'm gay because I hang out with him, but if they did I just don't care. My mate is more important to me than some random prick's opinion.

I worked with a man I'm pretty sure was gay, does that make me a prick?

Maybe ease up on the judgement there.

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

#53

Post by milkytron »

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #50
Khaine wrote: post #45

Because any media that shows two males as friends, has legions of people claiming them as gay, i.e. Sam and Frodo, Sherlock and Watson. So in the popular conscience two close guys must be gay. You cannot have a relationship in popular culture between two males, without a vocal minority claiming them as gay. Men subconsciously react to that. To signal they are straight avoid looking like they have close relationships…

As a male, that's never factored into having male friends, are you sure you're not projecting your own insecurities onto others?

Exactly my thoughts. As a straight male, I've never had this issue. Even if someone were to think we were gay, who cares? Maybe we could be, I don't see the issue.

Maybe some men have this insecurity, but if they're letting the unknown opinions of strangers prevent them from having meaningful friendships, I think they may need to work that out.

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

#54

Post by ido »

tptacek wrote: post #13
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.

Or...A job at an office?

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

#55

Post by P5fRxh5kUvp2th »

atoav wrote: post #22
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.

Ah the good old natural argument, that does ignore that reality (or as some call it: nature ) looks different. What you call natural is societal behaviour that is specific to western society of this day and age. Even in our own society looking three generations back that "nature" looked different and if you cared to look elsewhere than where you live you'd find that what you call "natural" does not exist in certain o…

The societies that look different to you are more family oriented and as such agree with the poster you're responding to.

Men want people they would willingly die for, family and only the closest of friends qualify. Western individualism has, in many ways, lost that very basic need.

This is why men who have been through experiences have a tendency to become close friends. Think about former war buddies. Sports is, in many ways, a simulated war scenario.

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

#56

Post by nickthegreek »

Khaine wrote: post #45

Because any media that shows two males as friends, has legions of people claiming them as gay, i.e. Sam and Frodo, Sherlock and Watson. So in the popular conscience two close guys must be gay. You cannot have a relationship in popular culture between two males, without a vocal minority claiming them as gay. Men subconsciously react to that. To signal they are straight avoid looking like they have close relationships…

I have never seen this happen. In fact, I only see the opposite, it can be difficult to have a friend of the opposite sex without people thinking you are intimate.

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

#57

Post by fatnoah »

favflam wrote: post #47

I moved to a city. One reason was that the car-dominated suburbs makes it reaaaally hard to make friends. Time from getting out of bed to meeting someone is like 30-45minutes, and I have to spend money. In the city,it is more like 15 minutes, meaning you can do it twice as often, hang out longer. I would say this is a big factor. The country side works so long as your friends are close by for beer, movies, and games?…

I agree with this 100%. When I lived in the city with my family, I'd a) run into random friends frequently and b) getting together was trivial since a large number of people lived within walking distance.

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

#58

Post by cafard »

"One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible." Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, Ch XX, Failure (1871).

Yet curiously there is constant mention of friends in the preceding chapters and beyond: I looked up the quotation in the Gutenberg Project version, and the sentence following has the 105th of 149 occurrences of the string "friends". Was Adams just being sententious, or do we have inconsistent notions of what friends are, or both?

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

#59

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

Khaine wrote: post #45

Because any media that shows two males as friends, has legions of people claiming them as gay, i.e. Sam and Frodo, Sherlock and Watson. So in the popular conscience two close guys must be gay. You cannot have a relationship in popular culture between two males, without a vocal minority claiming them as gay. Men subconsciously react to that. To signal they are straight avoid looking like they have close relationships…

This was the original, nuanced meaning of "homophobia", before it was simplified in the popular mind (where nuance cannot live) to merely mean "hatred of gay people". I think there was an implicit "see, there's something for straight people in this too!" aspect to the argument -- something like, "by eliminating the taboo on homosexuality, we will also eliminate the negative consequences to straight men of heterosexual signaling ". I'm not sure that's panned out though, since if anything it has probably increased the need for that signaling in many circles.

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

#60

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

nickthegreek wrote: post #56
Khaine wrote: post #45

Because any media that shows two males as friends, has legions of people claiming them as gay, i.e. Sam and Frodo, Sherlock and Watson. So in the popular conscience two close guys must be gay. You cannot have a relationship in popular culture between two males, without a vocal minority claiming them as gay. Men subconsciously react to that. To signal they are straight avoid looking like they have close relationships…

I have never seen this happen. In fact, I only see the opposite, it can be difficult to have a friend of the opposite sex without people thinking you are intimate.

> it can be difficult to have a friend of the opposite sex without people thinking you are intimate.

Is this really a counterexample? It would seem to me to be another example of the same phenomenon.

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