Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Do Men Suck At Friendship?

mensjournal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 261 posts

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#231

Post by dgreensp »

aaren wrote: post #167
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 friends…

The problem is that the only point of the article, besides telling a story, is to raise the question of whether the author is unsatisfied with (or sometimes merely insecure about) his friendships because men are bad at friendship compared to women. It doesn't make it better to present both sides and say "but who knows," it just makes it a worse article. Without any real facts or insight to talk about, attributing something you don't like about yourself to your gender is just psychological projection and spreads negative feelings towards men.

Imagine if a Dad wrote an article, "Do men suck at parenting?" that assessed men on what was essentially their ability to "mother." Or imagine if a male teacher wrote, "Do men suck at teaching?" or a female programmer wrote, "Do women suck at programming?" None of them motivated by a new study or based on anything but a personal anecdote. We'd all rightfully rise to the defense of men and women in general.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#232

Post by nzp »

theorique wrote: post #188
icebraining wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an heteronormative thing to say.

How about: "straight men and straight women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way". Better now?

No, not really. What about same sex friendships in homosexual men and women? Why would we single out hetero sexuality? As I said in my comment to Colin's post, no one ever makes such a statement for homosexual relations.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#233

Post by xyzzyz »

aestra wrote: post #191
xyzzyz wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This might not be completely it. Human physiology is weird. Only in recent history have we married for love and in some cultures you don't marry for love. Previously marriage was more like a business arrangement between families. They were also more final because of things like coverture men generally owned all the property of his wife. The woman tended to lose their own identity and become an extension of their husb…

Seems intuitively acceptable to me. For instance, when shopping for clothes, I usually buy the ones I hate the least. However, I actually like most of the clothes I own, even if I hadn't liked them that much before I bought them.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#234

Post by non0nsense »

aestra wrote: post #218
non0nsense wrote: post #29

How are we really defining friendship here? I've mostly found in my experiences that females value self-serving relationships that build them up. Meaningless values of 'friendship' where they have no contrast for a real, meaningful relationship. See how sexism swings both ways? Who the heck posts this kind of drivel?

You've been hanging out with some terrible people. I actually didn't find this article sexist or attacking.

I'm sorry? Do explain how you could read so much into a single comment. That or crawl back into whatever hole you came from please.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#235

Post by satellitecat »

mseebach wrote: post #119
adwn wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder when "America" ceased to mean "the two continents North and South America" and started to mean "USA" in the heads of US citizens. There's a reason why "European" isn't synonymous to "German", and why "Asian" isn't synonymous to "Chinese".

As I understand it, America = USA is not a US thing, it's an anglophone thing. For most of the history of the continent, if you were an english speaker, you were simply most likely to speak about the bit that's the USA, thus it got abbreviated. All language is littered with abbreviations that literally mean something broader, but has changed meaning for convenience. A car, for an example, technically means anything w…

Not so much in Canada. We'll call someone from the US an American, but we don't say America; we'll say the US, instead.. as I just did.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#236

Post by theorique »

nzp wrote: post #232
theorique wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about: "straight men and straight women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way". Better now?

No, not really. What about same sex friendships in homosexual men and women? Why would we single out hetero sexuality? As I said in my comment to Colin's post, no one ever makes such a statement for homosexual relations.

Let me put it a different way then. Is it possible to make a general comment on the heterosexual interactions between men and women without implicitly excluding homosexual people? And, is that exclusion sufficient reason that such general comments should never be made? (I'm not answering yes or no to these questions, just figuring out where we want to draw the lines.)

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#238

Post by finnh »

Aloha wrote: post #81

The article is statistically irrelevant - but feels right. I have many close friends, most of them are worlds away in terms of distance, and I don't hang out with many locals - sometimes I wonder if its Seattle, or something specific to my generation.

Having split my life between Seattle and San Francisco, I feel comfortable making the generalization that many Seattleites are very shy in real life.

If you moved to another city you might be surprised at how much easier it is to make new friends out of absolute strangers.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#239

Post by simplemath »

Lapsa wrote: post #140
jzzskijj wrote: post #129

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 op…

You are slowly turning into a girl. Before you'll realize that - you gonna become a transperson :(

I would be so happy if attitudes like yours didn't exist.

C'est la vie. Assholes all the way down.

Re: Do Men Suck At Friendship?

#240

Post by simplemath »

wsxcde wrote: post #48
sumedh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you speak for all Indians? This also happens in India and has nothing to do with western culture.

It's certainly easier to make friends in India. I used to do it effortlessly when I was there and I never felt lonely at all. Here it just seems harder to make friends. Part of it might just be that there are fewer people so you're less likely to find someone with whom you connect. And the other thing might be that a lot of interactions are so much more impersonal here. I haven't lived there in years but I know many…

I think the article in the OP is a particularly modern problem in societies with widely disparate socio-ethnic demographies. I think in more monocultural nations (India and CHina come immediately to mind) there is a much higher base level commonality of shared experience that translates particularly well into an assumed familiarity with other people.

In America, a lot of what is actually important (family, friendship, love) is sacrificed at the altar of self.

Post reply on HN