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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI'm not Sure What to Make of this? "American men’s hidden crisis: They need more friends!"
American mens hidden crisis: They need more friends!
Men aren't making the same kinds of intimate friendships many women have -- but they want to
Of all people in America, adult, white, heterosexual men have the fewest friends. Moreover, the friendships they have, if theyre with other men, provide less emotional support and involve lower levels of self-disclosure and trust than other types of friendships. When men get together, theyre more likely to do stuff than have a conversation. Friendship scholar Geoffrey Greif calls these shoulder-to-shoulder friendships, contrasting them to the face-to-face friendships that many women enjoy. If a man does have a confidant, three-quarters of the time its a woman, and theres a good chance shes his wife or girlfriend.
When I first began researching this topic I thought, surely this is too stereotypical to be true. Or, if it is true, I wondered, perhaps the research is biased in favor of female-type friendships. In other words, maybe were measuring male friendships with a female yardstick. Its possible that men dont want as many or the same kinds of friendships as women.
But they do. When asked about what they desire from their friendships, men are just as likely as women to say that they want intimacy. And, just like women, their satisfaction with their friendships is strongly correlated with the level of self-disclosure. Moreover, when asked to describe what they mean by intimacy, men say the same thing as women: emotional support, disclosure and having someone to take care of them.
Men desire the same level and type of intimacy in their friendships as women, but they arent getting it.
***
In an effort to understand why mens friendships are less intimate than womens, psychologist Niobe Way interviewed boys about their friendships in each year of high school. She found that younger boys spoke eloquently about their love for and dependence on their male friends. In fact, research shows that boys are just as likely as girls to disclose personal feelings to their same-sex friends and they are just as talented at being able to sense their friends emotional states.
But, at about age 15 to 16 right at the same age that the suicide rate of boys increases to four times the rate of girls boys start reporting that they dont have friends and dont need them. Because Way interviewed young men across each year of high school, she was able to document this shift. One boy, Justin, said this in his first year, when he was 15:
[My best friend and I] love each other thats it you have this thing that is deep, so deep, its within you, you cant explain it. Its just a thing that you know that person is that person I guess in life, sometimes two people can really, really understand each other and really have a trust, respect and love for each other.
By his senior year, however, this is what he had to say about friendship:
[My friend and I] we mostly joke around. Its not like really anything serious or whatever I dont talk to nobody about serious stuff I dont talk to nobody. I dont share my feelings really. Not that kind of person or whatever Its just something that I dont do.
What happens?
During these years, young men are learning what it means to be a real man. The #1 rule: avoid everything feminine. Notice that a surprising number of insults that we fling at men are actually synonyms for or references to femininity. Calling male athletes girls, women and ladies is a central part of motivation in sports. Consider also slurs like bitch and pussy, which obviously reference women, but also fag (which on the face of it is about sexual orientation, but can also be a derogatory term for men who act feminine) and cocksucker (literally a term for people who sexually service men). This, by the way, is where the ubiquitous slur you suck comes from; its an insult that means you give men blow jobs.
So men are pressed from the time theyre very young to disassociate from everything feminine. This imperative is incredibly limiting for them. Paradoxically, it makes men feel good because of a social agreement that masculine things are better than feminine things, but its not the same thing as freedom. Its restrictive and dehumanizing. Its oppression all dressed up as awesomeness. And it is part of why men have a hard time being friends.
To be close friends, men need to be willing to confess their insecurities, be kind to others, have empathy and sometimes sacrifice their own self-interest. Real men, though, are not supposed to do these things. They are supposed to be self-interested, competitive, non-emotional, strong (with no insecurities at all), and able to deal with their emotional problems without help. Being a good friend, then, as well as needing a good friend, is the equivalent of being girly.
Of course, not all men buy into these prescriptions for male behavior, but these expectations do influence most mens friendships at least a little bit. They mean that, to make good friends, men have to take risks. In a context in which being a man is good and being friendly is being womanly, each time a man tries to form intimate bonds with another man, he potentially loses status. Men who want truly close friends have to fight the instinct to protect their standing above all else. This isnt easy, as theyve been told for a lifetime that their status as male, and their place in that hierarchy, is a significant part of why theyre important and valuable human beings.
More of the article that I don't know what to Make Of, at:
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/08/american_mens_hidden_crisis_they_need_more_friends/
redstatebluegirl
(12,265 posts)He says the fact that I need girl time is odd to him. He has a new hobby that has a club attached to it and he s beginning to make a few friennds.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)but for Our Generation...we've not found separate ways to have "In Commons."
We do for politics..but, it's not the same...we feel.
We think it's a Generational Thing. We had friends with older ...but they are dying off and we sort of in a gap with the "Football Tail Gate/Hunting Crowd" and the "Constant Political" of the ones our age or younger...who we share ISSUE oriented causes in common...but, have little in common beyond that because we are a bit older than they are.
Sometimes we feel like "TWEENIES" the wedge between Generations.
Seeking Serenity
(2,840 posts)and I found it to come from a very gynocentric point of view. The real issue posed seemed to be, "Men need to have more friends the way women do."
As a woman, I'm quite sure I wouldn't react favorably to a man telling women how they should do things the way men do.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)our house about how "Man Things" don't seem to be the same as they were with our Parents Generation. So, it was an interesting read from that standpoint of WHY? to the questions we've been batting around.
westerebus
(2,976 posts)This is pretty much the time frame that dating of the opposite sex takes precedence, it is not a surprise that boyhood companionship would begin to take second place. As males and female pair off into the couples relationship stage of courting and sexual experimentation.
The course nature of male banter is no worse than that of their female counterparts. In the locker rooms or in the classrooms or on the internet.
It is a horrible stage of adolescence for either sex, well may be horrible is overstated, awkward none the less. Sex roles begin to mean something. We were all taught from an early age we were meant to love and be loved which in progression is the movement from friendship and companionship to the next level of human relations, intimacy.
This has to be put in context, it is not diminishing the feminine, it is the attraction to the feminine that distances males from other males as competition arises.
Past the college years on to the marriage eligible years comes more distance once the consummation of vows takes place.
Just my observation.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)At age 37, I can honestly say I only have two at the most...Sadly I "know" many DUers whom I've never met much better than people IRL (one of the reasons I still continue to hang around after all this time)...
I don't necessarily agree with all of the writer's points, but I think for a lot of us this is a much bigger problem than we'd care to admit...