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/...
