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Do Men Suck At Friendship?

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Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#161

Post by hablahaha »

curiousfiddler wrote: post #91
Xcelerate wrote: post #78

> 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…

Just have him move with you. It's a priceless experience.

I've been thinking about doing this in the upcoming years. I'm guessing you're speaking from experience, if so, can you elaborate more?

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#162

Post by seanccox »

seanccox wrote: post #115

Quoted text below from this source: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/300997-ok-now-let-s-have-som... 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…

I edited the parent to overcome the confusion I caused some people. Sorry about that.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#163

Post by Ntrails »

alex_doom wrote: post #153
elohesra wrote: post #141

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, wh…

Men's Journal is basically Cosmo. Bullshit journalism and fluff.

Which leads to the inevitable question of what in gods name this garbage is doing on the front page of HN

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#164

Post by schuke »

slavoingilizov wrote: post #155
wikiburner wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would get him a dog. I would also set him up on Skype so that you and your sister can interact with him in a personable way more often.

I agree it may help, but how on earth is a dog the same as a companion? It will fill a different void but certainly not the lack of a soulmate.

It's not. But it exposes one to many social interactions by walking, grooming, vaccinating a dog etc.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#165

Post by chill1 »

rybosome wrote: post #80

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…

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.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#166

Post by diydsp »

elohesra wrote: post #141

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, wh…

> 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.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#167

Post by aaren »

elohesra wrote: post #141

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, wh…

> 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.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#168

Post by vacri »

xyzzyz wrote: post #160
vacri wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is more divorce now because it is no longer a burdensome shame to break from a joyless marriage. People change and mature in different ways, and young people aren't known for making sensible decisions affecting the rest of their life. In ye olde days, people would stay with abusive (or boring) spouses purely because the social stigma of leaving was worse. These days that stigma is largely gone in much of the We…

What you say is true, but the grandparent is arguing why people want a divorce and why today's marriages are boring for participants. The implication is that even if access to divorce had been as easy 100 years ago as it is now, people would still divorce less frequently than they do now, because of the extended family stuff.

Yesteryear's marriages were also boring for some, it's not a new phenomenon. Yes, there is probably some effect in terms of psychological support from an extended family, but I doubt that that would have been more powerful (demographically) at discouraging divorce than the social stigma. Plenty of times that extended family was telling the individual to stay with the abusive spouse or else the family would be shamed. That's not a social environment to be proud of - who gives a fuck about the family name if the members have to live in misery to maintain it?

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#169

Post by l33tbro »

yason wrote: post #128
Xcelerate wrote: post #78

> 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…

On the other hand, it's not your responsibility to arrange for your dad what you think is best for him. He's an adult and will try to make the most of his life and will succeed or fail to be happy on his own. I'm a father and I wouldn't want my kids to patch my lonely life if I have one: they have their own lives and I have mine and it's certainly nice to see them sometimes but it can never be a deal breaker.

It's not OP's responsibility - but love is love, and wanting the best for your parents is not a bad thing at all.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#170

Post by aaren »

Ntrails wrote: post #163
alex_doom wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men's Journal is basically Cosmo. Bullshit journalism and fluff.

Which leads to the inevitable question of what in gods name this garbage is doing on the front page of HN

perhaps because it is an issue that resonates with the demographic of hacker news?
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