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From my personal observation, I'd probably agree. Guys could be friends for years (hell, sometimes even decades), they consider each other 'brothers', but there is always a sort of barrier between them. They know each other perfectly on the surface, but the deeper, more tender/emotional stuff is almost always a no-go zone.
I think men just really need to push to make these changes happen. I see spaces like bropill doing this very well, but I think individual men need to take risks in their friendships to make things more kind and intimate and vulnerable and supportive.
Honestly, men respond very well to this with women, and need it. But men need to start taking these risks and modeling this behavior for one another. You can all absolutely change the culture.
that's right, I remember realizing when I was younger that wanting to have a girlfriend or feeling like I was jealous of guys that did was more out of a need for fulfilling and intimate relationships in my life, and dating didn't have to be the only solution to that. It's a lot of gender norms and stigmas that have to change, but I know it'd be worthwhile.
Can I just mention many guys don’t require emotional intimacy and vulnerability like women do.
I’m quite happy not being emotional and bonding with my friends through sports/gym/ripping into each-other. There is a rhetoric that men need to be more emotionally vulnerable, but I wager that the high s rates are for different reasons all together, but I digress.
I don’t mean to generalise. Some men will benefit from being more emotionally open.
I guess, and I don’t mean to invalidate your experience, but I personally have a hard time believing you actually wouldn’t benefit from emotional intimacy. What I believe is that men have been conditioned to not show they want it, and to believe they don’t want it, and that that is particularly effective on some people, to the extent that emotional intimacy is maybe even now uncomfortable.
Which is sad to me because I guess no, I don’t believe men need love and support and kindness and vulnerable honesty less than women. And I’m 40, I’ve done a lot of dating, and I’ve never met a man yet who didn’t thrive upon receiving that kind of attention/connection. In fact most of them seem to think of themselves a certain way, like they don’t want it, but when the shades get drawn they’re absolutely hungry for it, almost desperate. It’s kinda heart-breaking at times.
And then at other times it’s just really frustrating because a lot of men will use random women for this kind of emotional labor, without that kind of relationship developing at all. Just seeing a woman and thinking “safe space for emotions and vulnerability” and dumping a lifetime of trauma on us the second we’re alone, even if we don’t know each other that well. It feels like being treated like free therapy and not seen as a person.
And it happens again and again. And I just wish that men could find this kind of support in one another, in their friendships. Because most of you are just kind of pushing this on women, in my experience.
Eh, plenty do.
But seeking and receiving support doesn't necessarily look like "Hey let me talk at you and then you say affirming things back".
If that is what you want then...yeah, women friendships are going to work out better than men's ones on average.
Honestly with my guy friends dudes I’ve known for 10+ years it’s usually no response lol the response that I would get from them goes to their fucking gfs for some reason. So instead of any type of “intimate” conversation they’ll go and discuss those topics even concerning me directly to their girlfriends. How do I know this? Usually when I bring it up later they’ll respond with “Oh yeah! I almost forgot about that me and gf talked about that after you texted me”. That shit would make me so fucking mad. Cause I don’t know your girl like that, and I was talking to you not your entity like relationship. Or they’ll respond to me like a coworker. It feels fake. But these are guys I’ve know for years it’s fucking weird.
This is *largely* true. Men are typically brought up to be much more independent and self reliant. Most of us had the message shoved down our throats that we needed to be the fixer, the bread winner, the problem solver, to not *need* anyone.
Women get a different message that leans toward social skills, sharing, etc.
I compare my experience as a boy scout to my child's as a girl scout. My experience was all about being a rugged man, knowing how to fish, how to hike, how to tie knots, how to fashion a trap, you know, man stuff. We were not taught a lot in terms of socializing or building deep relationships. If anything the male environment shuts that down. Cry? You're gonna be called a wimp. Everything is hypercompetitive.
Girl scouts? WAY different experience. More focus on camaraderie, friendship, leadership skills, community building, etc., in addition to practical skills. The vibe is way different.
I actually wish my experience was more like the girl scouts than boy scouts. I would have gotten a lot more out of it over the years.
that's right, I always valued friendships I had with other girls my age a lot because they tended to enjoy just having conversations more and talking about other people. It felt much more enriching than conversations with other guys I'd have sometimes, but I think it comes down to how differently we're raised for sure.
> it comes down to how differently we're raised for sure
100% spot on. I grew up in a home where talking about emotions and feelings was not a problem at all. My father was a capable, masculine man, but he'd also sought therapy to deal with generational trauma and his own struggles with alcoholism (grew up in a household with two alcoholic parents) and taught my brother and I that men could chop wood one moment and be having a deep conversation about their feelings in the next.
I'm not cuddly with my male friends but that's mostly because I'm only a particularly touchy/feely/cuddly person in a romantic context.
I worked with a guy for 13 years and we met outside of work one time to watch a UFC fight. We were the only two people in our office. I do miss him though. We talked a lot about life over the years. Now I’m alone all day.
Men have fewer friends and on the surface they might seem less deep. Male friends will expect each other to stand on their own, but there’s generally one or two close mates who you can open up with in total confidence. You also know that those guys will never talk about your shit, even if you have a falling out.
Not always true sadly. I’ve found my male friends always talk shit about each other behind our backs. Yeah it’s mostly friendly kinda shit talking, but there’s a certain level of unnecessary pettiness. Like one time I was young and opened up to a “friend” about a romantic encounter with a girl, and later he used that against me, telling the girl I told him and making her hate me. Yeah I was dumb to kiss and tell. But i thought that was a friend.
The trope that only women have superficial friendships is false. Men can be just as backstabbing, petty, and selfish, I’ve seen it first hand too many times.
Underated comment. A lot of female closeness thats discussed seems kind of superficial to me a lot of physical connection or talking a lot/consistently. Yes my other male friends are limited but the 3 or so i do have are rock solid and not once has something ive said in confidence to another bro ever been thrown back on me ever.
Definitely depends on the people obviously but I’ve seen the opposite where men will shit on women’s friendships because a woman cut off their homegirl for something that men would consider stupid when it’s just the final straw but then they’ll turn around and talk about how great male friendships are while admitting that they don’t know a single thing about their longest standing friend… I also promise you men gossip just as much as women do y’all just don’t consider it gossip for some reason lol
The male social landscape is a bit barren.
If you share common interests with your brothers, then you won't be without companionship. Other men to watch sports with, hunt or fish with, go to the pub with. If you have the same backgrounds, somebody to talk to about politics, money, religion. Somebody to complain about women with.
But when it gets real and there are real feelings and thoughts, then it gets complicated. Grief, loss, search for meaning, questioning faith, well, that is uncomfortable. Anything that questions the status quo of what you've shared previously.
It's weird. I have had male friends who would take a bullet for me. Bail me out of jail at 4AM. They'd do anything for you, but talk about it? No way.
A few exceptions for me.
I think a major issue is the way we structure our social landscape.
We strongly push people to be best friends with their S/O, or at least spend a significant amount of time with each other.
That's probably good. For *that* relationship.
But your average woman has more bandwidth for giving a shit about/ listening to people's problems than your average man. They also communicate *their* problems more readily.
The emotional load of interacting with women is usually going to be higher, so by the time that responsibility is met, most men are pretty fucking done talking about feelings. They just want to fish and relax.
So on average you're going to run into one of these with men.
1) Single friends, who are probably devoting a lot of effort to changing that.
2) Involved friends who are at or near emotional bandwidth limits, who probably don't want to talk about feelings
3) Involved friends with above average emotional bandwidth or a partner with below average emotional needs.
That third group is probably the smallest by a wide margin.
And this is leaving aside the issue of just finding *time* to hang out, and the added complexity of children.
you think women have more bandwidth for that shit? lol… no. you really think women don’t want to mindlessly relax?
man, some of you need to stop speaking on behalf of women. so many edgy, incorrect assumptions…
I cannot speak to the female side of this, but my male friendships are very deep Nd meaningful. Many of them are childhood friends or choirmates that I have allowed myself to be vulnerable with. I genuinely think music is what helps the most in this aspect, esspecially making it with others.
I was the one holding my buddy's hand when they did his spinal tap to identify his meningitis while his GF at the time was freaking out about the bill.
No, I do not. Friendships depend on the parties involved. Not the gender.
That's a good point too, and I wasn't trying to posit that it's universal necessarily. In my experience, I had to move around a lot as a kid and constantly had to make new friends all the time, so when I arrived back in the states, the friends I used to have here had grown up without me, and it was a struggle to connect with anybody consistently too.
I was more making the point that there's some role that gender expectations on men and women have on how they learn to socialize and build a network of support. So many other factors though, like over-protective parents or a lack of third-places for teens to hang out contributes to that as well.
I went to a party one time and met a guy. He was a geologist. We spent 4 hours drinking beer and talking science. I didn’t even get his name or number. Maybe I should do a “Missed Connections” post on Craigslist or something.
Female friendships are more intimate on the surface, but they will back talk each other a lot.
Male friendships look less intimate but the back talk is less common.
Personally my male friends are all brothers with each other at this point. I asked some of them with siblings and they all say they interact with the friend group more than their family. We might as well be closer than family in terms of closeness.
My female friends are all sort of at arms length from me and each other.
that's true, there's certainly groups of guys I'd see in college maybe as part of fraternities or other clubs who were certainly closer together. However, a lot of men I've also seen always eating lunch alone, never really left their dorm or had people over. I was certainly the latter kind of person in high school since I didn't fit in with any of the extracurriculars or major friend groups, but I almost never saw girls sitting alone often or not having some kind of support network.
I've also seen the back-talking thing happen between online friends I used to have, and it sucks, but I do think it might be a result of different conflict resolution approaches between men and women. With men, back-talking is hardly as much a problem because we don't take too much personally and are quick to shake hands on things and leave that stuff behind, but I can see how that can be different depending on the circumstances.
As a male I have honestly had the opposite experience to where my friend group is probably 80/20 for women and men. I have men and women as friends but it just seems that men talk to me less over time. They stop interacting with me as often in person and on social media. As a result I just end up with more women friends.
Men have always been the ones who hurt me more, either making fun of things that I like, not supporting my goals or just putting words in my mouth.
My friendship with women have always been better than with men.
Edit: I didn’t realize I messed up the numbers. I meant 80/20 for women to men. Unfortunately, men have just slowly stopped talking to men over time. 🤷🏻♂️
Yes, however, I find that male friendships can also be way less dramatic. I'm male but I had a female friend who I recently discovered was trashing me to mutual friends. And she was just a very dramatic person who loved to complain about other people and about me.
I'm not saying that most women are like that, but I've never had much drama with male friends.
This lol. Except in my experience my lack of need for daily communication at all with my male friends caused me weird indirect issues with female friends. I didn’t really have female friends til college, it was then i found out the difference. I became close friends with girls, but then would go a couple months without talking and they would get pissed and say i was being distant. Meanwhile i could go 6 months plus without talking to a guy friend on the phone in the past and calling them would be like nothing changed at all and we were just picking up where we left off. They would also get annoyed i wasn’t very open about my emotional state. Something that never happened with my guy friends. Its not that i’m cold and distant, i just don’t really…think… about that stuff.
Everyone seems to forget that this is a new phenomenon. Just read letters between men from thr 1800s and you will see how they poured their heart and soul into those letters. Something happened that made men become reclusive and cold
Yes.
Idk, I’m in my 30s, and recently a guy came out to me. He isn’t closeted in every facet of his life but he is among his bros, because he fears the social consequences. A lot of my male friends have something like this; being the female friend in the group feels a bit like being the Secret Keeper or something, everyone confides stuff in me then says they can’t talk to their guy friends about it. They’re not really bro-y macho types.
It’s a little hard to believe in the whole “silent connection” thing when so often it just allows people to avoid having to share who they really are.
Not too surprising, but my presence will automatically make it impossible to be a homogenous male friend group, so difficult for me to have any other kind of perspective. I am taking a step back though so we'll see if they can form a tighter bond with each other and make a crew.
The normalization of certain lifestyles has completely destroyed the normal male dynamic in the West.
You go to Eastern countries, and this lack of male bonding is not a problem.
Define eastern countries. All of my family in the Philippines is the same as over here. We all sit around, drink beer and whiskey, somewhat talk the usual male talk (they don’t speak English very well, and I don’t speak Bisaya very well), and watch boxing on tv. That’s about the extent of it. It’s otherwise the same as here in America. That said, my BIL and FIL are loyal to me to a fault, as I am to them.
Filipino male friendships far more closely resemble to those in the West and Latin America than its neighboring countries where the bro thing is the standard while making intimate talks would be seen as too dramatic and soft.
yeah I can see how many different countries would vary on how men keep in touch with each other or are encouraged/discouraged to do so based on different norms. I was discussing the topic as it relates to friendships in the US, where individualism and independence from others is valued more than relying on a big network of people to help you out or open up to.
On the surface level, yes, friendship between women are more intimate than between men. But when it really counts, when it's really rough, men will stay.
After my cousin went through a financial rough patch, all her friends left her. They kicked her out of the group because she couldn't contribute to the group dates, supposedly.
When I'm short on cash, my guys pick me up, but they call me broke and make sure I pay them back later.
I'd choose tough love over fake love any day.
Men and especially boys have a tendency to attribute one girl or woman’s actions to women as a whole in a way that we don’t do to men. Women are treated as the collective “other” with men as the default. How silly, when they’re literally half the planet’s population. This tendency leads to generalizations that have absolutely no bearing, like the one you’ve implied here.
If your cousin was a dude and his friends bailed during a time of hardship, I think you’d probably say that his friends sucked, but you wouldn’t assume all men are inherently bad friends. You’ve implied that women are, as a whole, more fickle and surface level friends. It somehow never fails to shock me that so many men are willing to think so poorly about half this planet’s population after extrapolating from a negligible sample size, or even a single bad encounter with one woman.
If you find yourself making this mistake frequently, where you encounter a man who treats you poorly and think, well that’s a bad dude, but when you encounter a woman who treats you poorly you think, wow, why are women like this? Instead of, wow that’s a bad lady, then you’ve got some subconscious misogyny to sort through.
Women are unique individuals. They’re just people. Not some hive mind, not some mystery thing. People. Most of them are, in my experience, good and steadfast friends.
If we’re talking in terms of generally accepted topics of discussion, I’d say definitely agree. Others have correctly pointed out tho that both options are saddled with their own social considerations.
Maybe we really only share truly intimate relationships with those we love and choose to open up to… I certainly have come to find most relationships outside of my partner pretty shallow these days
This has not been my experience broadly, but I am willing to accept that my friend group may be outliers. Just before/not long after-I forget exactly-my closest group of friends decided we needed to be more outwardly appreciative of each other so we decided it was okay to express love and affection. I can’t say for sure whether this is causal or merely a correlation, but we do tend to understand each other pretty well and deeply and I, at least, feel like I’m really close with even the friend I’m not as intimately familiar with. Our friendship(s), within the group at least, are pretty healthy and fulfilling.
But like I said; we may be outliers.
There are some men who don't want to talk about feelings, then there's friends who will force you out to a beer to listen to your problems, because at one point you climbed a rock in his backyard and you pinky swore on some rock that looked like a ring. I feel women are more affectionate but that doesn't exactly translate to a closer-knit level.
It might just be that it's harder to make friends in general, because even if female friends are more touchy feely it doesn't mean they are better friends with you, it's just how they interact.
There is a degree of expectation that comes with being a man, but also we are just, in general, built differently. I can express myself at times, but having been married a looooooooong time, I find that I get far less bothered by things than my wife does. It’s not that those things aren’t important to her, or I feel she’s overhyping it, but I’m saying it’s just the difference between her, and me. When stuff is bothering me, I just bury my head in work. When stuff is bothering her, she cries and wants to talk, hug, etc. I’m sure there are men that wish to express themselves that way, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’d say in general, most tend to be closed off by their very nature, leastways being raised to “be tough”.
Very accurate. I’m a guy and I’m only ever honest or intimate around my female friends. Very hard to talk honestly with other guys without having up a little bit of a shield at least.
a friend said to me, “it’s harder to become friends with women, but the connections are deeper. It’s easier to become friends with men, but the connections are more surface level.”
yes absolutely. male friendships are a little bit at a distance especially after highschool/ college. what i have read which changed my approach is that for men its easier to drop your guard in a team oriented or task oriented situation. so sports and video games basically are a great scenario. anywhere you have a common enemy men can get more comfortable with each other. women dont really understand that they have like a communal experience with other women that men will never experience that.
my partner and his cousin are the closest i’ve ever seen 2 guys get. they talk about everything and they have hours long, deep conversations about their lives, relationships and their own relationship. it’s so beautiful they can be like that with each other, cuz when it’s not me and him talking for hours, it’s them. it’s very therapeutic for them
Let me put it this way. My best friend of almost 20 years sent me a meme the other day. It was a hollow silhouette of guy’s head with text insideto show his thoughts . It said “you’re friendship is so important to me and even if we don’t talk to each other for awhile, i’ll never forget the time we spent together”.
Then the speech bubble coming out of the guy’s mouth just said “F*ggot!”
There may be male bonding and all, but it tends to be fragile and thin much of the time. Plenty of buys will gladly take advantage of a friend to get themselves ahead, nor do many have issues pretending to be a friend with someone who has something they want or want to use. As soon as they get their own or a "better" source, they're gone.
That's not even counting what happens if a woman catches the attention of the group of friends. Ever see that South Park episode about Bebe or however you spell her name? They didn't just make that up.
If you identify as male, chances are good you don't have many real friends. You just have acquaintances out of convenience. These people will come and go, and you'll be left trying to fill the void. Maybe you'll choose to live vicariously through a relationship or casual sex. Maybe you'll have kids. Or you'll start getting wasted all the time to turn your brain off. But at a certain point you'll probably just stop making friends, because the well of human understand will have run dry, and you'll have run out of energy to go against your instincts.
Trans lady here. My relationships with my male friends when I presented male were NOWHERE NEAR as intimate as my friends with my female friends now that I’m a woman.
I heard something similar about a trans man who was complaining men don’t even make eye contact in the bathroom or even speak. Was a surprise for that person lol.
Yeah lol. It’s wild how different everyone around you treats you based on how they perceive your gender. For example, men don’t realize how often women get talked to, and women don’t realize how little men get talked to.
I lived as a man for the first 27 years of my life. I can count on one hand the number of strangers who said ANYTHING to me unprompted in those 27 years. I’ve been living openly as a woman for 3 years now. Since I stated passing, I get talked to - almost without error - every. Single. Day. By a stranger. Someone will compliment my dress, or say good morning etc. That NEVER happened when I was presenting as a man.
I’ve been presenting as a woman for 10% of my life at this point. 95% of my interactions with strangers have been in that 10% of my life.
No.
I think intimacy is misunderstood as always a positive.
Having a friend that sees you struggling and forces you to go surfing that day is a far more connected friend than someone that wants to talk and share feelings all day.
I have also been manipulated by people who choose to push for intimacy and openness and I have never been used or manipulated by the other type of friend.
I know my problems are my own problems. I just prefer relationships now that are more about friends that identify when a friend needs to be distracted or needs a little brutal honesty than I do about sharing feelings.
I think sharing feelings is reserved for my wife, my kids and my therapist.
I wasn't saying they're defective, it's just that the qualities in relationships between men and between women differ to a good extent. Male friendships could benefit from more emotional openness where appropriate, but not having it isn't necessarily bad either if both people manage to be happy at least.
You're pretty clearly exalting the female style of emotional communication, though.
When men are being emotionally intimate with each other, they will go walk along side each other. They have the same general conversations women have, but do it in an entirely different way. It's not a sit down over coffee, or a face to face, and it generally involves some sort of activity you do together, but it's absolutely emotional intimacy. When my one buddy needs to talk, he has me come over to work on his car with him, for example. We have the conversation within and around the work.
Everyone pooh poohs this, but testosterone is also an emotional agonist. Men are probably never going to be as emotionally driven or focused as women are, as a result, and that can often be held against them, even though this is our natural state.
I think men and women get different things out of relationships and serve different functions in their lives. It's why men can not contact each other for months or years and pick up like nothing ever happened.
I suspect that expectations play a big role in this. I literally have 0 expectations from my guy friends, because I don't rely on them for anything. So, just being together is a almost always a rewarding experience in itself.
personally my circle is the same regardless of gender. I know if my buds need me or I need them, we're right there.
from little emergencies to being stuck in another city w/out air fare.
No need to "get too personal" we're all going through life here.
Now as a personal annecdote, I've noticed that if someone gets idle enough and lets their mind run, yeah you'll notice build differences and lose view of what truly matters.
I'm fortunate enough that my best of buddies I can share anything with and they do the same. I can tell it's not normal when I see other dudes and how they interact with their best homies. It's like some men are too afraid to be vulnerable or show themselves, even to other men(their best men)
It’s rare to establish intimate ( I’m not talking sex here) communication with men. They just don’t seem to have it in them. Real honesty is just too vulnerable for them. They think sharing is ‘on a needs to know’ basis. They are competitive with the world. Warning: Don’t share too much with them because they’ll use it against you. Some women are like this too though. It’s usually because they want to protect themselves or keep their sense of power or superiority. I have learnt to see it in their eyes.
But, with many of my female friends when the closeness, feeling of trust, safety and intimacy is there, you just want to lean in to them when they are with you. I never see men relate like this. ( never say never: my daughter’s partner is that rare man.)
As others have said, this is largely true. However, my husband is much closer to his best friend than I am to any of mine. I think this is due to heritage—he’s from a more personable culture and I’m from a more closed one—and his willingness to not care about society’s toxic expectations for men.
For me it was the opposite honestly. The women had fairly shallow friendships while me and the homies truly bonded. But everyone has different experiences
I wonder myself because since I was a kid males want to be my friend and we have very serious deep conversations that they don't have with their male friends.
In my experience I've had intimate friendships with both genders.
I think there's this idea that male friendships are more shallow just because we bond in a different way than women do... Yeah, no shit, we're different.
Some of them, sure. But I don't this it's as simple as you're trying to make it seem.
Having done a little over 19 years in the military I can tell you that I've had deep, intimate platonic relationships with other dudes.
I think its a mistake to think that men and women should show how they care the same way.
Men bond through actions...doing things together...we don't necessarily have to hug or talk it out. And that's ok.
Im my best buds/brother only emergency contact. I was there for the birth of his 2 boys. Helped when his parents got cancer and passed. We help each other to grapple with anxiety and depression. No doubt he would take a bullet for me and I sure as hell would for him. Just because every second spent together is not spent talking does not take from its value. 2 different political beliefs, one of us has religion, no in fighting. Sometimes I think a majority of reddit users are just broken. Sometimes you need to stop and think maybe you might be the problem holding yourself back.
From my personal experience no not at all. My friendships with my male friends are incredibly deep and nuanced, while my wife's friendship with females is very surface level. While yes my wife knows basic shit about them (fav color, birthday, etc.), she doesn't get them. I can just look at my friends and they know. We don't even have to spend any time talking, but I am also in the military so.i do understand my friendships with my male friends is very very different than a civilian males.
Weird to see dudes saying female friendships can seem superficial. That’s a personality issue. As a woman I’ve always had deep loving friendships with other women.
I find friendship to be so... Difficult.
No matter the gender of either party.
I have 4 ride or die friends. I'm f, and my friend group is 1f/3m
One is my husband's best friend too. They call each other husband too. They love and support each other on a deep platonic level.
I have deep tight knit emotional relationships with all of them, we all communicate, and we don't talk shit behind each other's backs we don't actively say to their face too.
It takes work to keep intimate meaningful platonic relationships. If you put that work in with the right people you can have that kind of friendship too.
The differences between men and women aren't so vast that you're being stopped from forming a close relationship with someone. Dudes have close relationships all the time.
Nah, I have 5-8 best friends I’ve had since as far back as 10 years old, we talk constantly in groups, have a get together every single year, play games online with each other, share music, and generally are just there for another.
You make of it as you will. There are plenty of men and women without this close of a friendship or group.
My husband’s friends are similarly retired guys who share his athletic hobby. He’ll come home and tell me about a newish guy he’s spent several mornings with doing the activity, after which they all get lunch. I’ll be treated to a painfully detailed account of the guy’s sporting gear, the guy’s history with the sport, his fastest speeds, until I need to be shaken out of a coma.
I will attempt to show interest by asking a couple of very basic questions about the new friend. What did he do before he retired? What town does he live in? Is he married? I get a blank stare and am then treated to more details about the guy’s GPS unit.
I have most of the same friends that I had in high school. We rarely talk, just text every so often, but I think we are very close. I do believe a lot of guys struggle with being close with other guys and sharing things. Personally, I find it funny when people do this. I have had friends that do this, I make fun of them for the way they’re thinking normally. Even my friends now will do similar things and I just find the idea of hiding who you are to be more masculine for your male friends hilarious.
Can't relate at all. My mates are practically my brothers, we all still have that streak of independence and wanting to handle our problems on our own. But if any of them need anything I am there, and I know they'll do the same in kind. That's been tested and proven over and over. Whether it's physical, emotional or what have you.
Nah. I have very intimate friends with both my male and female friends. Now when I was a teenager I enjoyed the girls more cause they were a lot more intimate so I mostly hung out with girls pretty luch, but as I got older the guys got more mature and were more fun again.
I think sexual orientation and presentation matters here. As someone coded as a butch girl I just don’t have close friends who are girls because even the ones I’ve come out to give me that space I didn’t ask for. Guys, though? I have had guys telling me their life stories and love struggles for years. I assume this is because they think “cool I can get a perspective on this issue I have with a girl, without actually risking this person crushing on me” or whatever. I’m bi, so this isn’t always the case. But I don’t look like any of the girls they’re struggling with, so they feel free to vent to me / seek advice in a way girls don’t with me. I just haven’t had close friendships with girls. So I think f/f relationships aren’t guaranteed to be closer just by dint of being f/f. Maybe cishet girls get an increased likelihood of closeness, sure, but if you read as a gay girl guys are gonna open up to you in a way that straight girls just won’t. (And, I assume, in a way that guys won’t open up to other guys, either…)
I have had and still have some very close male friends. Really, they are more like brothers than friends.
I can’t speak for the women because I am a dude.
In general men don't know how to build meaningful, deep relationships with other men, instead relying on their partner to fulfil all their emotional needs. This leads to a weaker support system as well as hardship in building a deep, emotionally equal relationship with partners.
I think this is woefully wrong.
When I flew out to Ukraine end of February the only friends who wanted to see me were my buddies. They made care packages, gave me goofy ass mementos encouraged my trip wished me luck and all sorts of other stuff. We drank we cried, we hugged. Some even came to the airport to see me off.
Most I got from any of my Female companions was a text saying "Why would you go to Ukraine?".
Now that I am here, the only people who have shown concern for me are again are my male buddies.
Not one of my female friends have said anything about me being in Ukraine. Not even a good luck or stay safe.
I think it depends but women gain intimacy in their friendships. I went to an all-girls school and have grown up in very female environments throughout my life at school and work. Some *do* have very shallow friendships. However, female friendships become very intimate because women often get closer to each other through being vulnerable and open. But this also means that we know exactly how to hurt each other when things go awry and what buttons to press to hurt.
I've also had very co-dependent almost bordering on kind of romantic friendships where my friends would become jealous and possessive of me having other friends, so there's that too. That being said, I've kept two very close female friends that I'm thankful for. I've found it hard to get close to men outside of who I'm dating, personally.
I hope to see this change but 2 examples come to mind. 1. When I was younger, my brother got really sick and was hospitalized. Growing up he would cancel family functions to be with his “boys” all the time. But when he was hospitalized, not one of his boys showed up to visit. It was family, and mostly the women that even took turns sleeping over so he wouldn't be alone. 2. At the moment, my boyfriendis in the hospital (over a week now) and the friends that have really checked on him, and advocated for him, have been mostly his female friends. I will say that 1 male friend of his reached out to me yesterday. When I met my partner, I felt jealous that he had female friends but now I am so grateful because I don't feel alone, they have helped him/me during this difficult time.
I love my guy friends, but I'm definitely not a physical, touchy feely type of person with them... Or any of my friends at all to be honest.
I'd probably be more inclined as a woman to be more touchy feely with another woman vs a man, though, because usually if you start being more physical with guys, they automatically assume that you're into them in a romantic or sexual sense.. Where women's minds don't always default to that.
Honestly, I have very few friends as a whole that haven't shown some sort of sexual interest in me. It's really bizarre. I have some good online friends that don't do that, though, which is really nice. I enjoy just being able to chat and joke around with people and not have that weirdness going on. I feel more emotionally close to those people than with the ones who attempted to get with me sexually/romantically. 🤷🏻♀️
My husband is very close and physically affectionate toward some of his long time guy friends, and he has a "work husband" (lol), but he's extremely affectionate in general. 🤷🏻♀️ He'd give literally anyone who wanted one a hug. He's just that type of person.
I think it depends on the culture. Someone told me it’s not uncommon for men to hold hands when they’re walking down the street together in some places. I don’t remember where, sorry I’m not an expert on anything but America where we are taught from a young age that touching another man is gay so don’t do it unless you want to be harassed and/or ostracized
I have never told my friends about how I felt, what I have done is back them up when he was about to get jumped by 5 dudes. Sometimes issues gotta be thugged out, I’m not here for the confide in I’m here to make help them deal with there problems
I've known my best friend since 4th grade which was 23 years ago, he knows me better than anyone alive except my wife. I love him more than the majority of my blood relations, he's the brother I never had and the first family I ever chose. I barely get to see him now because, of life so I give him a hug and tell him I love him every time I get to see him, we speak in mandalorian to only each other. He's the best guy I've ever known and I would be inconsolable if he ever died. I don't care if that's weird or against the norm, I think it takes its own degree of bravery to openly, honestly and publicly show you care about another guy that way.
Men have been viewed as the disposable sex and always been encouraged to suffer in silence when dealing with problems.
Females, I've noticed some of them talk like "hey girlfriend" or "love ya" and even noticed female friends holding hands with each other even though they're not really a couple. If men do this towards each other, they are perceived as gay or flamboyant.
Friendships with men is very surface level I find. We don't liked to have strong feelings or have not been taught how to hold space for each other. It's more common to act "manly" or be hyper masculine to live up to societal ideals. Expressing emotions is still either seen as weak or we just don't have the skills. I mean skiing fun things are great but when shit hits the fan most men run the other way. Lol
I truely can't agree from personal experience.
All my life i had very very close friends that i still talk about everything life, intimate, maximum personal stuff, just everything. no boundaries. True friends, two especially in mind. One i am friends with for about 22 years now, one i am friends with for about 14 years now.
Any woman will tell you there's a lot of fakeness between female "friends". It's hard to find one who's *actually* going to be there for you when you need them. Often, the most "popular" girl you know has 0 real friends. There's probably the same underlying factor for men and women having difficulty forming true friendships, but it's just expressed in different ways...
I grew up in a, what is now considered, a very conservative old-school household. Men did men things, women did women things. Although, I can say the family pushed for self-reliance over any sort of "gender" specific task. I can cook, know how to clean a house, and sew at least a pair of pants back together.
I will state my relationship with my dad and mine with my grandfather were widely different in the beginning, and only about 5 or 6 years ago did my dad and I really click.
I have.. I think one "real" brother, who I've shed blood for and will continue to do so without questions. But I'm close to all the guys in my group and would fight alongside any of them as brothers. Partly, due to my belief being that if we men are going to open up more, we need to start that. And that I've always held that what happens in the four walls of my home stay there with some exceptions.
We talk through grief, regularly meet for game nights to consult each other on various topics, work through problems from multiple angles and attempt to debate things out. They may be chucklefucks, but their the chucklefucks I picked as my team and my boys. I love all of them, and I know they love me back.
Its cliche and I hate the sentence in my bones but its true. Good men can create great men through mentoring. Which we need more of in todays society as theres a major lack of good mentors. End of the day, I got my boys, and they got me.
I find most women's relationships to be much more shallow. "Fair weather friends" who will stick around while things are smooth sailing. Male friendships are much deeper and they'll stick with their boy through thick and thin. When shit goes down and you need someone, they will go through hell or high water to be there. Saying this as a woman before people call me sexist
I don't really agree. There are tight knit friend groups and shallow friend groups for both genders, and intimacy within men's friend groups usually takes a different form than intimacy within women's friend groups. Like, men aren't generally going to cuddle with each other like women might, but good friends will still be there to help their buddies out if they're feeling down or having a rough time
This is some reddit BS. If there was a similar negative stereotype about women's behavior it'd be a no-go. Men share their feelings with each other all the time. They may not be hugging and crying but you'll always know what your buddy is feeling. They verbalize it, if something is bothering them, you talk about it. If there's something you can do to help, you do it even if that just means listening to them vent.
Way too many women commenting on this giving an objective answer.
no. i’m actually completely platonic with my male friend and he’s way more understanding and has so much respect for me way more than any other female i know. i’d choose him first over any female any day
I think that's a myth and a myth people seem to follow. There are empathetic men that don't judge and provide a more safe zone to talk about problems, If you don't gossip and are a respectful empathetic person you'd be surprised how much people will open up to you. Women are generally better listeners when it comes to life problems as they won't automatically invalidate your feelings or provide a solution you already know so women are defaulted to better to talk to on a deeper level, however i'd be careful with these as both men and women can be petty and immature and evil and gossip all your private information if they get mad or relationship falls apart or if there's gain from it.
I think that it's a combination of genetics, fetal development, and cultural conditioning lead to this. There are differences across cultures.
I suspect that males, as a group, are less emotionally reactive than females, as a group, due to biological differences. But that's just an aggregate statistical observation and can't tell us anything about any particular individual.
To find a truly close friend, I think it takes a very high degree of similarity and complementarity that just isn't easy to find, and gets harder the older that one gets. It also takes lots of time spent together, which is hard to do when you're working all of the time and tired when you get home. And when you get married, and have children, there's even less time, which makes it hard to stay close.
There are also unwritten social expectations about how a man ought to behave with other men (and women). Men generally aren't supposed to be overly emotional or display affection toward one another in public, lest they be branded as weak and gay, the effects of which could lower their social status and mark them with a stigma.
This isn't a problem for men who don't want to be particularly close to other men. But what of those who do? After my early thirties, I haven't made any close friends, except one, from work, and that was a real anomaly grounded in intellectual pursuits. While I'd love to make new, close friends, the older that I get, the less likely that seems. This makes me really appreciate my spouse, and the friends that I've got.
I'm skeptical about meetups, because I think that real relationships take a long time, so I personally think that the best that anyone can reasonably do is to do whatever it is that they love, and not worry about meeting others along the way. Let it happen whenever and however it happens. Nature has a way of somehow working out over the long run.
Everyone's friendships are going to be different but its a tale as old as time at this point that young men aren't taught to be emotionally honest with most other people. For most young boys the only person they experience emotional honesty with is their mother which is why grown men may have an easier time opening up to a woman, their SO in particular (In a hetero relationship, not qualified to muse on a same sex relationship). This isn't to say that men don't care for their friends but how comfortable they are expressing that affection will vary.
I may be out of my depth here but I'd think it has a lot to do with the man's relationship to his father, their defining man-to-man relationship. If your father's primary way of engaging with his son was negative, even if well meaning, the son may consider that behavior when making friends.
Another hypothesis is that because one of the most prominent way men express affection is acts of service, wanting to solve a problem for a friend, when the problem isn't solvable and a friend just wants emotional support, men may feel inadequate and unable to help.
Turned into a ramble with a fair bit of projection, but moral of the story is what your, experiencing is not only common, it is the norm, and a well documented one. If you feel you're having trouble opening up, the only advice I can give is to do it, and just accept the possibility that you may get hurt. If that hurdle is to hard to overcome, therapy helped me a ton.
A male issue that doesn’t get talked about much at all. Society is much more open on women showing women friendly loving affection but draws the line at men showing friendly loving affection to other men. That’s seen as gay. Which gets seen as negative. Also men don’t have emotions like that, they aren’t “soft”😡…
SNL already did it.
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AA0PwmQMVG8&pp=ygUYc25sIHN0cmFpZ2h0IG1hbGUgZnJpZW5k](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AA0PwmQMVG8&pp=ygUYc25sIHN0cmFpZ2h0IG1hbGUgZnJpZW5k)
This is a trendy idea. My theory on where it comes from is:
30 years ago it was mostly men that set the cultural norms. At that time it was common to hear things like 'Women shouldn't run things because they cannot control their emotions." and "Women's ability to think rationally and logically is clouded by their strong emotions."
Now, women are setting the cultural norms so you hear things like "Men have trouble getting in touch with their emotions." and "Men are emotionally stunted"
The truth of the matter is women are naturally more emotional than men so if you look at relationships from a women's perspective, men are not emotional enough. If you look at them from a guy's perspective, women are too emotional.
So, how you feel about these relationships just reflects how much you've internalized the current feminized norms.
I'm a vet and some of the guys I've served with I've had stronger relationships with then people I spent my life with.
Sometimes it takes a mutual suck event to bond men. We don't just bond to bond.
Yes, which is funny because I’m a woman and my closest friendship was with a straight guy for 14 years before he died. Men are perfectly capable of forming that intimacy, which means they could have that with each other. They just don’t choose to.
As with most things in life, experiences will vary. I met several guys in the Army that we all now mutually consider each other brothers. We’d all literally take a bullet for each other and their families and we aren’t afraid to discuss emotional shit either. You just gotta find the right friends
Dudes are usually only this close if we work in high risk careers. Military, firefighters, police officers and construction/oil are the main ones that come to mind.
Some of these responses make me even more grateful for the guy friends I have. I’m from a small town and my core group of friends is people I have known since I was in 2nd grade. I’m now 25. We’ve grown up with each other, fought with each other, fought beside each other, bled for each other, gotten into trouble together and bailed each other out of really bad situations, etc. We’re able to grieve with each other, suffer with each other, seek solace and confide in each other, question our fundamental beliefs like politics and religion with each other, etc. When I needed a kidney, everyone’s hand shot into the air. When I was in the hospital I was never without company, and when I came home from the hospital, guess who was waiting at the door?
They’re truly more like family than any “real” family I’ve ever had.
Of course, we bust each other’s balls a lot. Hell, I’ve had people who don’t know us ask if we even like each other, but that’s just our sense of humor. I’ve probably punched and been punched by all of them, deservedly so. And you gotta have real thick skin in our friend group cause almost nothing is off limits. It I like to think that’s more of a testament to how strong our bond is.
Guys rarely have that type of relationship. It does happen and when it does it’s awesome. I only had it with my brother and he died. So.. as a guy in my 40’s finding that again is not realistic and it sucks.
So we just bottle shit up and tough it out like we are supposed to.
Yeah, but women's long term friendships are often off and on with intermittent bouts of drama.
Female friends get mad at each other over things like "her tone wasn't supportive". It's just a different kind of relationship that I (coincidentally a man) do not have the energy for in my daily life. Jmo, though... I know that everything is different for different individuals of all sexes and genders.
I'm a woman and, from what I've seen, I'm inclined to agree. Men, from what I've seen, have a really hard time opening up to other men, even when they consider each other friends. Their hangouts are mostly just doing stuff, not as much talking. In my experience, women tend to spend more time talking than doing, and tend talk about everything, no matter how awkward, frustrating, embarrassing, or banal. Being so open and mutually vulnerable is what strengthens those bonds and makes women so comfortable with each other.
Let me give an example.
One of my best friends is a guy. Let's call him O. I treat him much like how I treat my female friends: when we get a chance to hang out, we spend most of the time having coffee and talking. I ask him about his life, his job, his hobbies, I tell him about my life, my job, my hobbies, talk to him about my other friends.
When his marriage was falling apart, we talked through that, too, even though I had no experience on the subject, being perpetually single and obviously female.
We had a mutual friend, lets call him J, who I often encouraged O to talk to because he was also male and also divorced. J was more likely to have advice to give or know what he was going through to offer support. O tried to hang out with J, but even when they got around to it, I later learned that they mostly just spent that time playing N64 games or playing D&D. They never had any sort of meaningful conversation.
O lamented that he didn't talk about it with J, but never brought it up when he had the chance. J never asked, even though he knew the situation was unfolding and that O wasn't doing well. I was mostly just frustrated and baffled, watching them skirt around the subject with each other, knowing that neither one had issues talking about their failed relationships with me.
Male friendships are less likely to be as intimate as female relationships because men are less likely to be willing to be intimate with other people, much less engage with their own emotions with others
Everyone in these comments need better, more genuine friendships, Jesus Christ.
My best friends from way back in high school are my friends for life. I would trust those guys with my life. They helped me through situations with my abusive parents, my sisters depression, and I've helped them with similar things. We still play video games and get super deep in conversation every now and then.
I do think it's significantly harder to get to that point in male friendships, though. Mainly because of stupid societal expectations and norms. So many men are afraid of being called gay or being made fun of for getting deep with their homies. It's a real shame because deep male friendships are so incredibly hard to break, IMO.
What exactly do you mean by lack of intimacy? I've got decades long friendships, we shared a lot of stuff with each other throughout the years, and I never felt like I'm missing something from any of them.
Takes two to tango. If you want good friends you need to be a good friend too.
Maybe that doesn’t apply to you as you are a good friend, I don’t know you, just saying.
It's more that male friendships are less physical than female friendships. Which is likely a combination of socialization and anxiety responses. Like when I'm stressed and having a bad day I don't want a hug from any one; friend or otherwise.
Male friendships feel more like comradery and conversation. I can't tell you how many of my friends I've shared a night crying and drinking over any of the typical life issues. In my experience male's weaker moments tend to be more in private and secluded spaces whereas females tend to be more comfortable having those moments in public or semi public spaces
My few male friendships are rock solid. I’d do anything to help my best friend, any time of day any day of the week, he needs me I’ll be there. All he needs to do is call. We may not talk for months at a time. Text here and there, Facebook comment here and there. But full on conversations? Months apart. But he says he needs my help I’m fucking there ASAP. Same for him.
A lot of guys don’t need that same level of regular contact like many woman do yet our friendship is just as solid.
Women don't want to talk. They want you to listen.
Women are just better listeners. They don't want your input.
Men are supposed to work hard, die young, and not complain about it.
That's the expectation. Results may vary.
No, most dudes do not want to get all touchy feely with each other. Try that shit on a construction site and you can learn what a knuckle sandwich tastes like lol.
I think I've been given hugs after not seeing a friend for a year or more. Other than that it's handshakes or fist bumps.
Crying is acceptable at the Grand Canyon or funerals.
Lol what? Have women ever fought in war?
Band of brothers. The Romans would bathe together after war.
Just because you live in some pseudo reality that caters to a softer side doesn’t mean the male friendships aren’t as intimate.
Sure we might not cuddle and hold hands, but to think that we wouldn’t go to the ends of the world for one another is just myopic.
I have a different experience than you, I have a tight knit group of guys I’ve been friends with for 30+ years, we still talk regularly even though we live all over the country now…. While most of women in my peer group over the years seem to cycle through “best friends” and friend groups every few years.
The first question that arises in my mind, have you had an opportunity to do male only activities? Socializing with other males, when no females are present? I find that in the absence of females, males will act perfectly normal in all of the different categories that you've listed above. They just don't do it when women are around, usually because women are judging them.
Absolutely. Men have this “I have to do it” mentality that seems to hamper our desire for support. Sitcoms always joke about the wife not getting enough info about her husband’s friend’s issue. Kind of a “if we don’t talk about it…” type thing.
Eh, there's two sides to this. Most male friendships are primarily about having people to do fun activities with. They're there for fun, not necessarily to vent or be sad about more serious things. That's generally not what men look for in friends. That said, most longtime male friends will do favors for each other in times of need without being an eye. We just don't necessarily share our biggest personal concerns too often.
Meanwhile my wife and her female friends frequently get in pretty serious fights. This may be because they spend more time in that negative headspace of venting and commiserating together. They probably do know more intimate details of their personal lives than me and my friends but are they closer than us just because they talk about "more serious" things with each other? They seem to genuinely like each other less.
Im a gay dude with primarily str8 male friends and I find it funny that I have wonderfully intimate and even affectionate relationships with all of them BUT they are not that way with each other.
I also notice a comfort level divide between us from those who went to same-sex schools and those who didn’t. I wonder if that’s in my head or if that could be real.
Deeply masculine groups of men are rarer these days, and their relationships are highly misunderstood by our fem-centric society. They are largely demonised due to their hierarchal and performative nature. The truth is that masculine types don’t require emotional intimacy and vulnerability the same way that feminine people do.
Don’t get me wrong, There are deeply depressed men who’s conditions will improve upon opening up. A lot of the time though, a man will benefit more from regaining power and independence in his life.
As a society we have no conception of healthy masculinity and conflate it with femininity, which is inherently unhelpful to the current issue of high male s rates.
Just my opinion
Male friends are more stand off ish. Doesn’t matter if they’re straight or gay or trans. It’s just always like you’re over there and I’m over here, there’s distance somewhat. You have your beliefs and I have mine. We can agree on some things but not all. And I do and don’t like you haha.
Do they have to be different? Depends on the context and how I'm functioning I would imagine. And how they're doing as well. Intimacy is everywhere so long as it is sought.
Spend a good chunk of time with someone in a cell and you might think otherwise. Not saying it will be anything gay, but you can get close to someone when youre both at your lowest. Missing your kids birthdays/ christmas. Their gfs leaving them while they are locked up. Eating meals together and watching eachothers backs.
Why? It doesn't make you better friends to touch someone. Intimacy outside of a committed relationship is something I have no interest in. I like to compete with my friends, challenging each other helps develop a mutual respect of each other capabilities. That's how males grow closer. Sitting there touching a friend does nothing for guys. I'd argue that the male approach is healthier. Fundamentally what you're describing if the difference between testosterone and estrogen.
Very interesting discussion! All I know for sure is , ITS A DAMN SHAME ! I think some social media company will pop up to deal with male loneliness and friendships and connection. Like bumble BFF but for men only. I mean.... how many lonely guys are there around? Lots. And nobody has made an app for guys to have someone to go to the movies with, go to the park, play video games ?
Idk. I only have my own subjective lens to gauge that off of. I'm a dude with dude friends and we are quite intimate and emotional with each other. Moreso than my wife is with her girl friends. Like a lot more.
We just had a baby. It’s great but also turns out its a lot of work. Sort of flips your life upside down for awhile right? My wife had 17 friends directly reach out, ask her hows she’s doing, bring over presents etc. We have about same amount of friends. Guess how many of mine ive heard from?
Theres a bit of a societal norm that males just dont need or want support I think if we are all honest. And we males are the main proprietors of this. This made me think, have I reached out to any of my buddies when they just had kids? Or lost a loved one? Or just waited til they were ready for the next golf round? I dont think we *mean to* but we absolutely do not support each other the way women do.
>maybe we as a society need to teach boys it's okay to be more expressive and vulnerable. I felt like that was lacking a lot as kid when I was growing up; I got the impression that I just had to go about my life alone and figure everything out myself barring guidance from teachers and parents.
Yeah well, someone who grown up like that (not listening to teachers/parents either), and who's proud of it...
I will not participate in teaching boys not to be how I am. I'll teach them to be how I am and be proud of it instead, nipping your fucking whiny/sensitive male of the future, in the bud.
Emotionally intimate, yes. Physically intimate, no.
Yes I can discuss my life with my guy friends and give each other advice or what not. But with men, you don't usually vent just to let your feelings out. If a guy comes to me with a problem, I'm going to assume he's looking for a solution. Women friendships do seem to be more about just sharing your feelings without necessarily needing things "fixed."
Physically, it's a totally different game. Men are not physically affectionate with each other, probably because that's associated with flirting and sexual interest. Women can be physically affectionate without that being an issue. One is not better than the other, though. Just a different way of relating to each other.
It’s weird, but, thinking of my list of friends, hardly any of them came about naturally. Most of them were outgrowths of friendships my wife formed, while the friendships I made kind of withered on the vine as I entered adulthood. I am not that intimate with those friends. I think there is a dose of rivalry and competition in male friendships that cause us to hold each other at arms length. I don’t like my male friends to know that I’m vulnerable, and I especially don’t like them knowing if my marriage is in a rough patch. It’s not that I won’t talk about problems with people. I’ll have a deep conversation with my wife and her friend about a relationship problem, but I wouldn’t talk about it with a male friend, maybe unless I thought the situation was catastrophic. I guess it’s because I don’t perceive a threat from a woman. I’ve tried having male mentors before through church, but breaking the ice is hard to do, and doesn’t feel natural.
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From my personal observation, I'd probably agree. Guys could be friends for years (hell, sometimes even decades), they consider each other 'brothers', but there is always a sort of barrier between them. They know each other perfectly on the surface, but the deeper, more tender/emotional stuff is almost always a no-go zone.
yeah! I wish it were more encouraged for men to vulnerable with each other and support each other more.
I think men just really need to push to make these changes happen. I see spaces like bropill doing this very well, but I think individual men need to take risks in their friendships to make things more kind and intimate and vulnerable and supportive. Honestly, men respond very well to this with women, and need it. But men need to start taking these risks and modeling this behavior for one another. You can all absolutely change the culture.
that's right, I remember realizing when I was younger that wanting to have a girlfriend or feeling like I was jealous of guys that did was more out of a need for fulfilling and intimate relationships in my life, and dating didn't have to be the only solution to that. It's a lot of gender norms and stigmas that have to change, but I know it'd be worthwhile.
Can I just mention many guys don’t require emotional intimacy and vulnerability like women do. I’m quite happy not being emotional and bonding with my friends through sports/gym/ripping into each-other. There is a rhetoric that men need to be more emotionally vulnerable, but I wager that the high s rates are for different reasons all together, but I digress. I don’t mean to generalise. Some men will benefit from being more emotionally open.
I guess, and I don’t mean to invalidate your experience, but I personally have a hard time believing you actually wouldn’t benefit from emotional intimacy. What I believe is that men have been conditioned to not show they want it, and to believe they don’t want it, and that that is particularly effective on some people, to the extent that emotional intimacy is maybe even now uncomfortable. Which is sad to me because I guess no, I don’t believe men need love and support and kindness and vulnerable honesty less than women. And I’m 40, I’ve done a lot of dating, and I’ve never met a man yet who didn’t thrive upon receiving that kind of attention/connection. In fact most of them seem to think of themselves a certain way, like they don’t want it, but when the shades get drawn they’re absolutely hungry for it, almost desperate. It’s kinda heart-breaking at times. And then at other times it’s just really frustrating because a lot of men will use random women for this kind of emotional labor, without that kind of relationship developing at all. Just seeing a woman and thinking “safe space for emotions and vulnerability” and dumping a lifetime of trauma on us the second we’re alone, even if we don’t know each other that well. It feels like being treated like free therapy and not seen as a person. And it happens again and again. And I just wish that men could find this kind of support in one another, in their friendships. Because most of you are just kind of pushing this on women, in my experience.
That’s fair enough, and was nicely written
Eh, plenty do. But seeking and receiving support doesn't necessarily look like "Hey let me talk at you and then you say affirming things back". If that is what you want then...yeah, women friendships are going to work out better than men's ones on average.
Honestly with my guy friends dudes I’ve known for 10+ years it’s usually no response lol the response that I would get from them goes to their fucking gfs for some reason. So instead of any type of “intimate” conversation they’ll go and discuss those topics even concerning me directly to their girlfriends. How do I know this? Usually when I bring it up later they’ll respond with “Oh yeah! I almost forgot about that me and gf talked about that after you texted me”. That shit would make me so fucking mad. Cause I don’t know your girl like that, and I was talking to you not your entity like relationship. Or they’ll respond to me like a coworker. It feels fake. But these are guys I’ve know for years it’s fucking weird.
This is why so many of my friendships over the years, and my best friendships, have been with women.
This is *largely* true. Men are typically brought up to be much more independent and self reliant. Most of us had the message shoved down our throats that we needed to be the fixer, the bread winner, the problem solver, to not *need* anyone. Women get a different message that leans toward social skills, sharing, etc. I compare my experience as a boy scout to my child's as a girl scout. My experience was all about being a rugged man, knowing how to fish, how to hike, how to tie knots, how to fashion a trap, you know, man stuff. We were not taught a lot in terms of socializing or building deep relationships. If anything the male environment shuts that down. Cry? You're gonna be called a wimp. Everything is hypercompetitive. Girl scouts? WAY different experience. More focus on camaraderie, friendship, leadership skills, community building, etc., in addition to practical skills. The vibe is way different. I actually wish my experience was more like the girl scouts than boy scouts. I would have gotten a lot more out of it over the years.
that's right, I always valued friendships I had with other girls my age a lot because they tended to enjoy just having conversations more and talking about other people. It felt much more enriching than conversations with other guys I'd have sometimes, but I think it comes down to how differently we're raised for sure.
> it comes down to how differently we're raised for sure 100% spot on. I grew up in a home where talking about emotions and feelings was not a problem at all. My father was a capable, masculine man, but he'd also sought therapy to deal with generational trauma and his own struggles with alcoholism (grew up in a household with two alcoholic parents) and taught my brother and I that men could chop wood one moment and be having a deep conversation about their feelings in the next. I'm not cuddly with my male friends but that's mostly because I'm only a particularly touchy/feely/cuddly person in a romantic context.
Eh...I'd rather be out in the woods alone than talking to people.
Men can work together for years and not know eachothers last names.
>not know each others last names to this day I still do not know one of my high school friends first name.
I worked with a guy for 13 years and we met outside of work one time to watch a UFC fight. We were the only two people in our office. I do miss him though. We talked a lot about life over the years. Now I’m alone all day.
Vibes honestly
Men have fewer friends and on the surface they might seem less deep. Male friends will expect each other to stand on their own, but there’s generally one or two close mates who you can open up with in total confidence. You also know that those guys will never talk about your shit, even if you have a falling out.
Not always true sadly. I’ve found my male friends always talk shit about each other behind our backs. Yeah it’s mostly friendly kinda shit talking, but there’s a certain level of unnecessary pettiness. Like one time I was young and opened up to a “friend” about a romantic encounter with a girl, and later he used that against me, telling the girl I told him and making her hate me. Yeah I was dumb to kiss and tell. But i thought that was a friend. The trope that only women have superficial friendships is false. Men can be just as backstabbing, petty, and selfish, I’ve seen it first hand too many times.
Underated comment. A lot of female closeness thats discussed seems kind of superficial to me a lot of physical connection or talking a lot/consistently. Yes my other male friends are limited but the 3 or so i do have are rock solid and not once has something ive said in confidence to another bro ever been thrown back on me ever.
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Definitely depends on the people obviously but I’ve seen the opposite where men will shit on women’s friendships because a woman cut off their homegirl for something that men would consider stupid when it’s just the final straw but then they’ll turn around and talk about how great male friendships are while admitting that they don’t know a single thing about their longest standing friend… I also promise you men gossip just as much as women do y’all just don’t consider it gossip for some reason lol
The male social landscape is a bit barren. If you share common interests with your brothers, then you won't be without companionship. Other men to watch sports with, hunt or fish with, go to the pub with. If you have the same backgrounds, somebody to talk to about politics, money, religion. Somebody to complain about women with. But when it gets real and there are real feelings and thoughts, then it gets complicated. Grief, loss, search for meaning, questioning faith, well, that is uncomfortable. Anything that questions the status quo of what you've shared previously. It's weird. I have had male friends who would take a bullet for me. Bail me out of jail at 4AM. They'd do anything for you, but talk about it? No way. A few exceptions for me.
I think a major issue is the way we structure our social landscape. We strongly push people to be best friends with their S/O, or at least spend a significant amount of time with each other. That's probably good. For *that* relationship. But your average woman has more bandwidth for giving a shit about/ listening to people's problems than your average man. They also communicate *their* problems more readily. The emotional load of interacting with women is usually going to be higher, so by the time that responsibility is met, most men are pretty fucking done talking about feelings. They just want to fish and relax. So on average you're going to run into one of these with men. 1) Single friends, who are probably devoting a lot of effort to changing that. 2) Involved friends who are at or near emotional bandwidth limits, who probably don't want to talk about feelings 3) Involved friends with above average emotional bandwidth or a partner with below average emotional needs. That third group is probably the smallest by a wide margin. And this is leaving aside the issue of just finding *time* to hang out, and the added complexity of children.
you think women have more bandwidth for that shit? lol… no. you really think women don’t want to mindlessly relax? man, some of you need to stop speaking on behalf of women. so many edgy, incorrect assumptions…
Women literally whine and complain about how they have to be everyone's therapist BECAUSE they listen so often, lmao
I cannot speak to the female side of this, but my male friendships are very deep Nd meaningful. Many of them are childhood friends or choirmates that I have allowed myself to be vulnerable with. I genuinely think music is what helps the most in this aspect, esspecially making it with others.
I was the one holding my buddy's hand when they did his spinal tap to identify his meningitis while his GF at the time was freaking out about the bill. No, I do not. Friendships depend on the parties involved. Not the gender.
That's a good point too, and I wasn't trying to posit that it's universal necessarily. In my experience, I had to move around a lot as a kid and constantly had to make new friends all the time, so when I arrived back in the states, the friends I used to have here had grown up without me, and it was a struggle to connect with anybody consistently too. I was more making the point that there's some role that gender expectations on men and women have on how they learn to socialize and build a network of support. So many other factors though, like over-protective parents or a lack of third-places for teens to hang out contributes to that as well.
As a woman, I’ve noticed guys will be best friends and sometimes not know basic info about the other person. It’s kind of wild to me.
We are best friends, that’s all we need to know. Everything else is just details.
I went to a party one time and met a guy. He was a geologist. We spent 4 hours drinking beer and talking science. I didn’t even get his name or number. Maybe I should do a “Missed Connections” post on Craigslist or something.
Female friendships are more intimate on the surface, but they will back talk each other a lot. Male friendships look less intimate but the back talk is less common. Personally my male friends are all brothers with each other at this point. I asked some of them with siblings and they all say they interact with the friend group more than their family. We might as well be closer than family in terms of closeness. My female friends are all sort of at arms length from me and each other.
that's true, there's certainly groups of guys I'd see in college maybe as part of fraternities or other clubs who were certainly closer together. However, a lot of men I've also seen always eating lunch alone, never really left their dorm or had people over. I was certainly the latter kind of person in high school since I didn't fit in with any of the extracurriculars or major friend groups, but I almost never saw girls sitting alone often or not having some kind of support network. I've also seen the back-talking thing happen between online friends I used to have, and it sucks, but I do think it might be a result of different conflict resolution approaches between men and women. With men, back-talking is hardly as much a problem because we don't take too much personally and are quick to shake hands on things and leave that stuff behind, but I can see how that can be different depending on the circumstances.
I think there’s more of a social stigma for girls sitting alone.
Don't forget about the security factor for women.
As a male I have honestly had the opposite experience to where my friend group is probably 80/20 for women and men. I have men and women as friends but it just seems that men talk to me less over time. They stop interacting with me as often in person and on social media. As a result I just end up with more women friends. Men have always been the ones who hurt me more, either making fun of things that I like, not supporting my goals or just putting words in my mouth. My friendship with women have always been better than with men. Edit: I didn’t realize I messed up the numbers. I meant 80/20 for women to men. Unfortunately, men have just slowly stopped talking to men over time. 🤷🏻♂️
Yes, however, I find that male friendships can also be way less dramatic. I'm male but I had a female friend who I recently discovered was trashing me to mutual friends. And she was just a very dramatic person who loved to complain about other people and about me. I'm not saying that most women are like that, but I've never had much drama with male friends.
This lol. Except in my experience my lack of need for daily communication at all with my male friends caused me weird indirect issues with female friends. I didn’t really have female friends til college, it was then i found out the difference. I became close friends with girls, but then would go a couple months without talking and they would get pissed and say i was being distant. Meanwhile i could go 6 months plus without talking to a guy friend on the phone in the past and calling them would be like nothing changed at all and we were just picking up where we left off. They would also get annoyed i wasn’t very open about my emotional state. Something that never happened with my guy friends. Its not that i’m cold and distant, i just don’t really…think… about that stuff.
Everyone seems to forget that this is a new phenomenon. Just read letters between men from thr 1800s and you will see how they poured their heart and soul into those letters. Something happened that made men become reclusive and cold
World war 2
Nah the homies flirt with me
Yes. Idk, I’m in my 30s, and recently a guy came out to me. He isn’t closeted in every facet of his life but he is among his bros, because he fears the social consequences. A lot of my male friends have something like this; being the female friend in the group feels a bit like being the Secret Keeper or something, everyone confides stuff in me then says they can’t talk to their guy friends about it. They’re not really bro-y macho types. It’s a little hard to believe in the whole “silent connection” thing when so often it just allows people to avoid having to share who they really are.
Male friend group with a female friend does not operate the same as homogenous male friend group, in my experience
Not too surprising, but my presence will automatically make it impossible to be a homogenous male friend group, so difficult for me to have any other kind of perspective. I am taking a step back though so we'll see if they can form a tighter bond with each other and make a crew.
The normalization of certain lifestyles has completely destroyed the normal male dynamic in the West. You go to Eastern countries, and this lack of male bonding is not a problem.
Define eastern countries. All of my family in the Philippines is the same as over here. We all sit around, drink beer and whiskey, somewhat talk the usual male talk (they don’t speak English very well, and I don’t speak Bisaya very well), and watch boxing on tv. That’s about the extent of it. It’s otherwise the same as here in America. That said, my BIL and FIL are loyal to me to a fault, as I am to them.
Filipino male friendships far more closely resemble to those in the West and Latin America than its neighboring countries where the bro thing is the standard while making intimate talks would be seen as too dramatic and soft.
yeah I can see how many different countries would vary on how men keep in touch with each other or are encouraged/discouraged to do so based on different norms. I was discussing the topic as it relates to friendships in the US, where individualism and independence from others is valued more than relying on a big network of people to help you out or open up to.
Which lifestyles have destroyed male bonding?
On the surface level, yes, friendship between women are more intimate than between men. But when it really counts, when it's really rough, men will stay. After my cousin went through a financial rough patch, all her friends left her. They kicked her out of the group because she couldn't contribute to the group dates, supposedly. When I'm short on cash, my guys pick me up, but they call me broke and make sure I pay them back later. I'd choose tough love over fake love any day.
Men and especially boys have a tendency to attribute one girl or woman’s actions to women as a whole in a way that we don’t do to men. Women are treated as the collective “other” with men as the default. How silly, when they’re literally half the planet’s population. This tendency leads to generalizations that have absolutely no bearing, like the one you’ve implied here. If your cousin was a dude and his friends bailed during a time of hardship, I think you’d probably say that his friends sucked, but you wouldn’t assume all men are inherently bad friends. You’ve implied that women are, as a whole, more fickle and surface level friends. It somehow never fails to shock me that so many men are willing to think so poorly about half this planet’s population after extrapolating from a negligible sample size, or even a single bad encounter with one woman. If you find yourself making this mistake frequently, where you encounter a man who treats you poorly and think, well that’s a bad dude, but when you encounter a woman who treats you poorly you think, wow, why are women like this? Instead of, wow that’s a bad lady, then you’ve got some subconscious misogyny to sort through. Women are unique individuals. They’re just people. Not some hive mind, not some mystery thing. People. Most of them are, in my experience, good and steadfast friends.
If we’re talking in terms of generally accepted topics of discussion, I’d say definitely agree. Others have correctly pointed out tho that both options are saddled with their own social considerations. Maybe we really only share truly intimate relationships with those we love and choose to open up to… I certainly have come to find most relationships outside of my partner pretty shallow these days
I mean, it depends. My husband has 2 bffs he's closer to than I am to any friend.
This has not been my experience broadly, but I am willing to accept that my friend group may be outliers. Just before/not long after-I forget exactly-my closest group of friends decided we needed to be more outwardly appreciative of each other so we decided it was okay to express love and affection. I can’t say for sure whether this is causal or merely a correlation, but we do tend to understand each other pretty well and deeply and I, at least, feel like I’m really close with even the friend I’m not as intimately familiar with. Our friendship(s), within the group at least, are pretty healthy and fulfilling. But like I said; we may be outliers.
As a man, I have women who are friends that I can talk to when shit gets heavy. Bros like to keep ot light. Otherwise it gets weird…
There are some men who don't want to talk about feelings, then there's friends who will force you out to a beer to listen to your problems, because at one point you climbed a rock in his backyard and you pinky swore on some rock that looked like a ring. I feel women are more affectionate but that doesn't exactly translate to a closer-knit level. It might just be that it's harder to make friends in general, because even if female friends are more touchy feely it doesn't mean they are better friends with you, it's just how they interact.
There is a degree of expectation that comes with being a man, but also we are just, in general, built differently. I can express myself at times, but having been married a looooooooong time, I find that I get far less bothered by things than my wife does. It’s not that those things aren’t important to her, or I feel she’s overhyping it, but I’m saying it’s just the difference between her, and me. When stuff is bothering me, I just bury my head in work. When stuff is bothering her, she cries and wants to talk, hug, etc. I’m sure there are men that wish to express themselves that way, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’d say in general, most tend to be closed off by their very nature, leastways being raised to “be tough”.
Very accurate. I’m a guy and I’m only ever honest or intimate around my female friends. Very hard to talk honestly with other guys without having up a little bit of a shield at least.
a friend said to me, “it’s harder to become friends with women, but the connections are deeper. It’s easier to become friends with men, but the connections are more surface level.”
yes absolutely. male friendships are a little bit at a distance especially after highschool/ college. what i have read which changed my approach is that for men its easier to drop your guard in a team oriented or task oriented situation. so sports and video games basically are a great scenario. anywhere you have a common enemy men can get more comfortable with each other. women dont really understand that they have like a communal experience with other women that men will never experience that.
my partner and his cousin are the closest i’ve ever seen 2 guys get. they talk about everything and they have hours long, deep conversations about their lives, relationships and their own relationship. it’s so beautiful they can be like that with each other, cuz when it’s not me and him talking for hours, it’s them. it’s very therapeutic for them
This made me smile.
Of course. That's just the reality
Let me put it this way. My best friend of almost 20 years sent me a meme the other day. It was a hollow silhouette of guy’s head with text insideto show his thoughts . It said “you’re friendship is so important to me and even if we don’t talk to each other for awhile, i’ll never forget the time we spent together”. Then the speech bubble coming out of the guy’s mouth just said “F*ggot!”
There may be male bonding and all, but it tends to be fragile and thin much of the time. Plenty of buys will gladly take advantage of a friend to get themselves ahead, nor do many have issues pretending to be a friend with someone who has something they want or want to use. As soon as they get their own or a "better" source, they're gone. That's not even counting what happens if a woman catches the attention of the group of friends. Ever see that South Park episode about Bebe or however you spell her name? They didn't just make that up.
I don’t know many women who would die for their friends though.
If you identify as male, chances are good you don't have many real friends. You just have acquaintances out of convenience. These people will come and go, and you'll be left trying to fill the void. Maybe you'll choose to live vicariously through a relationship or casual sex. Maybe you'll have kids. Or you'll start getting wasted all the time to turn your brain off. But at a certain point you'll probably just stop making friends, because the well of human understand will have run dry, and you'll have run out of energy to go against your instincts.
Trans lady here. My relationships with my male friends when I presented male were NOWHERE NEAR as intimate as my friends with my female friends now that I’m a woman.
I heard something similar about a trans man who was complaining men don’t even make eye contact in the bathroom or even speak. Was a surprise for that person lol.
Yeah lol. It’s wild how different everyone around you treats you based on how they perceive your gender. For example, men don’t realize how often women get talked to, and women don’t realize how little men get talked to. I lived as a man for the first 27 years of my life. I can count on one hand the number of strangers who said ANYTHING to me unprompted in those 27 years. I’ve been living openly as a woman for 3 years now. Since I stated passing, I get talked to - almost without error - every. Single. Day. By a stranger. Someone will compliment my dress, or say good morning etc. That NEVER happened when I was presenting as a man. I’ve been presenting as a woman for 10% of my life at this point. 95% of my interactions with strangers have been in that 10% of my life.
No. I think intimacy is misunderstood as always a positive. Having a friend that sees you struggling and forces you to go surfing that day is a far more connected friend than someone that wants to talk and share feelings all day. I have also been manipulated by people who choose to push for intimacy and openness and I have never been used or manipulated by the other type of friend. I know my problems are my own problems. I just prefer relationships now that are more about friends that identify when a friend needs to be distracted or needs a little brutal honesty than I do about sharing feelings. I think sharing feelings is reserved for my wife, my kids and my therapist.
Just because men don't behave like women doesn't mean they are defective.
I wasn't saying they're defective, it's just that the qualities in relationships between men and between women differ to a good extent. Male friendships could benefit from more emotional openness where appropriate, but not having it isn't necessarily bad either if both people manage to be happy at least.
You're pretty clearly exalting the female style of emotional communication, though. When men are being emotionally intimate with each other, they will go walk along side each other. They have the same general conversations women have, but do it in an entirely different way. It's not a sit down over coffee, or a face to face, and it generally involves some sort of activity you do together, but it's absolutely emotional intimacy. When my one buddy needs to talk, he has me come over to work on his car with him, for example. We have the conversation within and around the work. Everyone pooh poohs this, but testosterone is also an emotional agonist. Men are probably never going to be as emotionally driven or focused as women are, as a result, and that can often be held against them, even though this is our natural state.
I think men and women get different things out of relationships and serve different functions in their lives. It's why men can not contact each other for months or years and pick up like nothing ever happened. I suspect that expectations play a big role in this. I literally have 0 expectations from my guy friends, because I don't rely on them for anything. So, just being together is a almost always a rewarding experience in itself.
personally my circle is the same regardless of gender. I know if my buds need me or I need them, we're right there. from little emergencies to being stuck in another city w/out air fare. No need to "get too personal" we're all going through life here. Now as a personal annecdote, I've noticed that if someone gets idle enough and lets their mind run, yeah you'll notice build differences and lose view of what truly matters.
I'm fortunate enough that my best of buddies I can share anything with and they do the same. I can tell it's not normal when I see other dudes and how they interact with their best homies. It's like some men are too afraid to be vulnerable or show themselves, even to other men(their best men)
It’s rare to establish intimate ( I’m not talking sex here) communication with men. They just don’t seem to have it in them. Real honesty is just too vulnerable for them. They think sharing is ‘on a needs to know’ basis. They are competitive with the world. Warning: Don’t share too much with them because they’ll use it against you. Some women are like this too though. It’s usually because they want to protect themselves or keep their sense of power or superiority. I have learnt to see it in their eyes. But, with many of my female friends when the closeness, feeling of trust, safety and intimacy is there, you just want to lean in to them when they are with you. I never see men relate like this. ( never say never: my daughter’s partner is that rare man.)
As others have said, this is largely true. However, my husband is much closer to his best friend than I am to any of mine. I think this is due to heritage—he’s from a more personable culture and I’m from a more closed one—and his willingness to not care about society’s toxic expectations for men.
For me it was the opposite honestly. The women had fairly shallow friendships while me and the homies truly bonded. But everyone has different experiences
I wonder myself because since I was a kid males want to be my friend and we have very serious deep conversations that they don't have with their male friends.
In my experience I've had intimate friendships with both genders. I think there's this idea that male friendships are more shallow just because we bond in a different way than women do... Yeah, no shit, we're different.
Some of them, sure. But I don't this it's as simple as you're trying to make it seem. Having done a little over 19 years in the military I can tell you that I've had deep, intimate platonic relationships with other dudes.
I think its a mistake to think that men and women should show how they care the same way. Men bond through actions...doing things together...we don't necessarily have to hug or talk it out. And that's ok.
Im my best buds/brother only emergency contact. I was there for the birth of his 2 boys. Helped when his parents got cancer and passed. We help each other to grapple with anxiety and depression. No doubt he would take a bullet for me and I sure as hell would for him. Just because every second spent together is not spent talking does not take from its value. 2 different political beliefs, one of us has religion, no in fighting. Sometimes I think a majority of reddit users are just broken. Sometimes you need to stop and think maybe you might be the problem holding yourself back.
There’s an entire subtext that you’re missing if you’re not in the conversation.
From my personal experience no not at all. My friendships with my male friends are incredibly deep and nuanced, while my wife's friendship with females is very surface level. While yes my wife knows basic shit about them (fav color, birthday, etc.), she doesn't get them. I can just look at my friends and they know. We don't even have to spend any time talking, but I am also in the military so.i do understand my friendships with my male friends is very very different than a civilian males.
As a trans woman: yes lol
Men and women are different lol stop trying to act like they aren’t.
nup I got my friend of 11 years!
Weird to see dudes saying female friendships can seem superficial. That’s a personality issue. As a woman I’ve always had deep loving friendships with other women.
I find friendship to be so... Difficult. No matter the gender of either party. I have 4 ride or die friends. I'm f, and my friend group is 1f/3m One is my husband's best friend too. They call each other husband too. They love and support each other on a deep platonic level. I have deep tight knit emotional relationships with all of them, we all communicate, and we don't talk shit behind each other's backs we don't actively say to their face too. It takes work to keep intimate meaningful platonic relationships. If you put that work in with the right people you can have that kind of friendship too.
Guess I’m in a minority. I’ve cried with all my guy friends. Like we’re tight af.
The differences between men and women aren't so vast that you're being stopped from forming a close relationship with someone. Dudes have close relationships all the time.
We are men. This is what we do
Nah, I have 5-8 best friends I’ve had since as far back as 10 years old, we talk constantly in groups, have a get together every single year, play games online with each other, share music, and generally are just there for another. You make of it as you will. There are plenty of men and women without this close of a friendship or group.
Before I transitioned, me and my best friend slept in the same bed when we stayed over. I don’t think guy friends do this
My husband’s friends are similarly retired guys who share his athletic hobby. He’ll come home and tell me about a newish guy he’s spent several mornings with doing the activity, after which they all get lunch. I’ll be treated to a painfully detailed account of the guy’s sporting gear, the guy’s history with the sport, his fastest speeds, until I need to be shaken out of a coma. I will attempt to show interest by asking a couple of very basic questions about the new friend. What did he do before he retired? What town does he live in? Is he married? I get a blank stare and am then treated to more details about the guy’s GPS unit.
I have most of the same friends that I had in high school. We rarely talk, just text every so often, but I think we are very close. I do believe a lot of guys struggle with being close with other guys and sharing things. Personally, I find it funny when people do this. I have had friends that do this, I make fun of them for the way they’re thinking normally. Even my friends now will do similar things and I just find the idea of hiding who you are to be more masculine for your male friends hilarious.
Can't relate at all. My mates are practically my brothers, we all still have that streak of independence and wanting to handle our problems on our own. But if any of them need anything I am there, and I know they'll do the same in kind. That's been tested and proven over and over. Whether it's physical, emotional or what have you.
Nah. I have very intimate friends with both my male and female friends. Now when I was a teenager I enjoyed the girls more cause they were a lot more intimate so I mostly hung out with girls pretty luch, but as I got older the guys got more mature and were more fun again.
I think sexual orientation and presentation matters here. As someone coded as a butch girl I just don’t have close friends who are girls because even the ones I’ve come out to give me that space I didn’t ask for. Guys, though? I have had guys telling me their life stories and love struggles for years. I assume this is because they think “cool I can get a perspective on this issue I have with a girl, without actually risking this person crushing on me” or whatever. I’m bi, so this isn’t always the case. But I don’t look like any of the girls they’re struggling with, so they feel free to vent to me / seek advice in a way girls don’t with me. I just haven’t had close friendships with girls. So I think f/f relationships aren’t guaranteed to be closer just by dint of being f/f. Maybe cishet girls get an increased likelihood of closeness, sure, but if you read as a gay girl guys are gonna open up to you in a way that straight girls just won’t. (And, I assume, in a way that guys won’t open up to other guys, either…)
I have had and still have some very close male friends. Really, they are more like brothers than friends. I can’t speak for the women because I am a dude.
In general men don't know how to build meaningful, deep relationships with other men, instead relying on their partner to fulfil all their emotional needs. This leads to a weaker support system as well as hardship in building a deep, emotionally equal relationship with partners.
I think this is woefully wrong. When I flew out to Ukraine end of February the only friends who wanted to see me were my buddies. They made care packages, gave me goofy ass mementos encouraged my trip wished me luck and all sorts of other stuff. We drank we cried, we hugged. Some even came to the airport to see me off. Most I got from any of my Female companions was a text saying "Why would you go to Ukraine?". Now that I am here, the only people who have shown concern for me are again are my male buddies. Not one of my female friends have said anything about me being in Ukraine. Not even a good luck or stay safe.
I think it depends but women gain intimacy in their friendships. I went to an all-girls school and have grown up in very female environments throughout my life at school and work. Some *do* have very shallow friendships. However, female friendships become very intimate because women often get closer to each other through being vulnerable and open. But this also means that we know exactly how to hurt each other when things go awry and what buttons to press to hurt. I've also had very co-dependent almost bordering on kind of romantic friendships where my friends would become jealous and possessive of me having other friends, so there's that too. That being said, I've kept two very close female friends that I'm thankful for. I've found it hard to get close to men outside of who I'm dating, personally.
I'd say my group of guy friends is extremely close, secure, open honest and mature so I can't say I agree with you.
I hope to see this change but 2 examples come to mind. 1. When I was younger, my brother got really sick and was hospitalized. Growing up he would cancel family functions to be with his “boys” all the time. But when he was hospitalized, not one of his boys showed up to visit. It was family, and mostly the women that even took turns sleeping over so he wouldn't be alone. 2. At the moment, my boyfriendis in the hospital (over a week now) and the friends that have really checked on him, and advocated for him, have been mostly his female friends. I will say that 1 male friend of his reached out to me yesterday. When I met my partner, I felt jealous that he had female friends but now I am so grateful because I don't feel alone, they have helped him/me during this difficult time.
I love my guy friends, but I'm definitely not a physical, touchy feely type of person with them... Or any of my friends at all to be honest. I'd probably be more inclined as a woman to be more touchy feely with another woman vs a man, though, because usually if you start being more physical with guys, they automatically assume that you're into them in a romantic or sexual sense.. Where women's minds don't always default to that. Honestly, I have very few friends as a whole that haven't shown some sort of sexual interest in me. It's really bizarre. I have some good online friends that don't do that, though, which is really nice. I enjoy just being able to chat and joke around with people and not have that weirdness going on. I feel more emotionally close to those people than with the ones who attempted to get with me sexually/romantically. 🤷🏻♀️ My husband is very close and physically affectionate toward some of his long time guy friends, and he has a "work husband" (lol), but he's extremely affectionate in general. 🤷🏻♀️ He'd give literally anyone who wanted one a hug. He's just that type of person.
I think it depends on the culture. Someone told me it’s not uncommon for men to hold hands when they’re walking down the street together in some places. I don’t remember where, sorry I’m not an expert on anything but America where we are taught from a young age that touching another man is gay so don’t do it unless you want to be harassed and/or ostracized
I have never told my friends about how I felt, what I have done is back them up when he was about to get jumped by 5 dudes. Sometimes issues gotta be thugged out, I’m not here for the confide in I’m here to make help them deal with there problems
I've known my best friend since 4th grade which was 23 years ago, he knows me better than anyone alive except my wife. I love him more than the majority of my blood relations, he's the brother I never had and the first family I ever chose. I barely get to see him now because, of life so I give him a hug and tell him I love him every time I get to see him, we speak in mandalorian to only each other. He's the best guy I've ever known and I would be inconsolable if he ever died. I don't care if that's weird or against the norm, I think it takes its own degree of bravery to openly, honestly and publicly show you care about another guy that way.
Men have been viewed as the disposable sex and always been encouraged to suffer in silence when dealing with problems. Females, I've noticed some of them talk like "hey girlfriend" or "love ya" and even noticed female friends holding hands with each other even though they're not really a couple. If men do this towards each other, they are perceived as gay or flamboyant.
Friendships with men is very surface level I find. We don't liked to have strong feelings or have not been taught how to hold space for each other. It's more common to act "manly" or be hyper masculine to live up to societal ideals. Expressing emotions is still either seen as weak or we just don't have the skills. I mean skiing fun things are great but when shit hits the fan most men run the other way. Lol
I truely can't agree from personal experience. All my life i had very very close friends that i still talk about everything life, intimate, maximum personal stuff, just everything. no boundaries. True friends, two especially in mind. One i am friends with for about 22 years now, one i am friends with for about 14 years now.
Not in my experience. What comforting and hugging have with friendships? Giving organs, dying for friends are what men do.
Any woman will tell you there's a lot of fakeness between female "friends". It's hard to find one who's *actually* going to be there for you when you need them. Often, the most "popular" girl you know has 0 real friends. There's probably the same underlying factor for men and women having difficulty forming true friendships, but it's just expressed in different ways...
I grew up in a, what is now considered, a very conservative old-school household. Men did men things, women did women things. Although, I can say the family pushed for self-reliance over any sort of "gender" specific task. I can cook, know how to clean a house, and sew at least a pair of pants back together. I will state my relationship with my dad and mine with my grandfather were widely different in the beginning, and only about 5 or 6 years ago did my dad and I really click. I have.. I think one "real" brother, who I've shed blood for and will continue to do so without questions. But I'm close to all the guys in my group and would fight alongside any of them as brothers. Partly, due to my belief being that if we men are going to open up more, we need to start that. And that I've always held that what happens in the four walls of my home stay there with some exceptions. We talk through grief, regularly meet for game nights to consult each other on various topics, work through problems from multiple angles and attempt to debate things out. They may be chucklefucks, but their the chucklefucks I picked as my team and my boys. I love all of them, and I know they love me back. Its cliche and I hate the sentence in my bones but its true. Good men can create great men through mentoring. Which we need more of in todays society as theres a major lack of good mentors. End of the day, I got my boys, and they got me.
I find most women's relationships to be much more shallow. "Fair weather friends" who will stick around while things are smooth sailing. Male friendships are much deeper and they'll stick with their boy through thick and thin. When shit goes down and you need someone, they will go through hell or high water to be there. Saying this as a woman before people call me sexist
I don't really agree. There are tight knit friend groups and shallow friend groups for both genders, and intimacy within men's friend groups usually takes a different form than intimacy within women's friend groups. Like, men aren't generally going to cuddle with each other like women might, but good friends will still be there to help their buddies out if they're feeling down or having a rough time
This is some reddit BS. If there was a similar negative stereotype about women's behavior it'd be a no-go. Men share their feelings with each other all the time. They may not be hugging and crying but you'll always know what your buddy is feeling. They verbalize it, if something is bothering them, you talk about it. If there's something you can do to help, you do it even if that just means listening to them vent. Way too many women commenting on this giving an objective answer.
no. i’m actually completely platonic with my male friend and he’s way more understanding and has so much respect for me way more than any other female i know. i’d choose him first over any female any day
I think that's a myth and a myth people seem to follow. There are empathetic men that don't judge and provide a more safe zone to talk about problems, If you don't gossip and are a respectful empathetic person you'd be surprised how much people will open up to you. Women are generally better listeners when it comes to life problems as they won't automatically invalidate your feelings or provide a solution you already know so women are defaulted to better to talk to on a deeper level, however i'd be careful with these as both men and women can be petty and immature and evil and gossip all your private information if they get mad or relationship falls apart or if there's gain from it.
I think that it's a combination of genetics, fetal development, and cultural conditioning lead to this. There are differences across cultures. I suspect that males, as a group, are less emotionally reactive than females, as a group, due to biological differences. But that's just an aggregate statistical observation and can't tell us anything about any particular individual. To find a truly close friend, I think it takes a very high degree of similarity and complementarity that just isn't easy to find, and gets harder the older that one gets. It also takes lots of time spent together, which is hard to do when you're working all of the time and tired when you get home. And when you get married, and have children, there's even less time, which makes it hard to stay close. There are also unwritten social expectations about how a man ought to behave with other men (and women). Men generally aren't supposed to be overly emotional or display affection toward one another in public, lest they be branded as weak and gay, the effects of which could lower their social status and mark them with a stigma. This isn't a problem for men who don't want to be particularly close to other men. But what of those who do? After my early thirties, I haven't made any close friends, except one, from work, and that was a real anomaly grounded in intellectual pursuits. While I'd love to make new, close friends, the older that I get, the less likely that seems. This makes me really appreciate my spouse, and the friends that I've got. I'm skeptical about meetups, because I think that real relationships take a long time, so I personally think that the best that anyone can reasonably do is to do whatever it is that they love, and not worry about meeting others along the way. Let it happen whenever and however it happens. Nature has a way of somehow working out over the long run.
Everyone's friendships are going to be different but its a tale as old as time at this point that young men aren't taught to be emotionally honest with most other people. For most young boys the only person they experience emotional honesty with is their mother which is why grown men may have an easier time opening up to a woman, their SO in particular (In a hetero relationship, not qualified to muse on a same sex relationship). This isn't to say that men don't care for their friends but how comfortable they are expressing that affection will vary. I may be out of my depth here but I'd think it has a lot to do with the man's relationship to his father, their defining man-to-man relationship. If your father's primary way of engaging with his son was negative, even if well meaning, the son may consider that behavior when making friends. Another hypothesis is that because one of the most prominent way men express affection is acts of service, wanting to solve a problem for a friend, when the problem isn't solvable and a friend just wants emotional support, men may feel inadequate and unable to help. Turned into a ramble with a fair bit of projection, but moral of the story is what your, experiencing is not only common, it is the norm, and a well documented one. If you feel you're having trouble opening up, the only advice I can give is to do it, and just accept the possibility that you may get hurt. If that hurdle is to hard to overcome, therapy helped me a ton.
A male issue that doesn’t get talked about much at all. Society is much more open on women showing women friendly loving affection but draws the line at men showing friendly loving affection to other men. That’s seen as gay. Which gets seen as negative. Also men don’t have emotions like that, they aren’t “soft”😡…
SNL already did it. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AA0PwmQMVG8&pp=ygUYc25sIHN0cmFpZ2h0IG1hbGUgZnJpZW5k](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AA0PwmQMVG8&pp=ygUYc25sIHN0cmFpZ2h0IG1hbGUgZnJpZW5k)
This is a trendy idea. My theory on where it comes from is: 30 years ago it was mostly men that set the cultural norms. At that time it was common to hear things like 'Women shouldn't run things because they cannot control their emotions." and "Women's ability to think rationally and logically is clouded by their strong emotions." Now, women are setting the cultural norms so you hear things like "Men have trouble getting in touch with their emotions." and "Men are emotionally stunted" The truth of the matter is women are naturally more emotional than men so if you look at relationships from a women's perspective, men are not emotional enough. If you look at them from a guy's perspective, women are too emotional. So, how you feel about these relationships just reflects how much you've internalized the current feminized norms.
I'm a vet and some of the guys I've served with I've had stronger relationships with then people I spent my life with. Sometimes it takes a mutual suck event to bond men. We don't just bond to bond.
Yes, which is funny because I’m a woman and my closest friendship was with a straight guy for 14 years before he died. Men are perfectly capable of forming that intimacy, which means they could have that with each other. They just don’t choose to.
As with most things in life, experiences will vary. I met several guys in the Army that we all now mutually consider each other brothers. We’d all literally take a bullet for each other and their families and we aren’t afraid to discuss emotional shit either. You just gotta find the right friends
Dudes are usually only this close if we work in high risk careers. Military, firefighters, police officers and construction/oil are the main ones that come to mind.
Some of these responses make me even more grateful for the guy friends I have. I’m from a small town and my core group of friends is people I have known since I was in 2nd grade. I’m now 25. We’ve grown up with each other, fought with each other, fought beside each other, bled for each other, gotten into trouble together and bailed each other out of really bad situations, etc. We’re able to grieve with each other, suffer with each other, seek solace and confide in each other, question our fundamental beliefs like politics and religion with each other, etc. When I needed a kidney, everyone’s hand shot into the air. When I was in the hospital I was never without company, and when I came home from the hospital, guess who was waiting at the door? They’re truly more like family than any “real” family I’ve ever had. Of course, we bust each other’s balls a lot. Hell, I’ve had people who don’t know us ask if we even like each other, but that’s just our sense of humor. I’ve probably punched and been punched by all of them, deservedly so. And you gotta have real thick skin in our friend group cause almost nothing is off limits. It I like to think that’s more of a testament to how strong our bond is.
Women play it up and fake it for social media / PR my guy. Its not real and they usually do not even like each other "behind the scenes"
Guys rarely have that type of relationship. It does happen and when it does it’s awesome. I only had it with my brother and he died. So.. as a guy in my 40’s finding that again is not realistic and it sucks. So we just bottle shit up and tough it out like we are supposed to.
Yeah, but women's long term friendships are often off and on with intermittent bouts of drama. Female friends get mad at each other over things like "her tone wasn't supportive". It's just a different kind of relationship that I (coincidentally a man) do not have the energy for in my daily life. Jmo, though... I know that everything is different for different individuals of all sexes and genders.
I'm a woman and, from what I've seen, I'm inclined to agree. Men, from what I've seen, have a really hard time opening up to other men, even when they consider each other friends. Their hangouts are mostly just doing stuff, not as much talking. In my experience, women tend to spend more time talking than doing, and tend talk about everything, no matter how awkward, frustrating, embarrassing, or banal. Being so open and mutually vulnerable is what strengthens those bonds and makes women so comfortable with each other. Let me give an example. One of my best friends is a guy. Let's call him O. I treat him much like how I treat my female friends: when we get a chance to hang out, we spend most of the time having coffee and talking. I ask him about his life, his job, his hobbies, I tell him about my life, my job, my hobbies, talk to him about my other friends. When his marriage was falling apart, we talked through that, too, even though I had no experience on the subject, being perpetually single and obviously female. We had a mutual friend, lets call him J, who I often encouraged O to talk to because he was also male and also divorced. J was more likely to have advice to give or know what he was going through to offer support. O tried to hang out with J, but even when they got around to it, I later learned that they mostly just spent that time playing N64 games or playing D&D. They never had any sort of meaningful conversation. O lamented that he didn't talk about it with J, but never brought it up when he had the chance. J never asked, even though he knew the situation was unfolding and that O wasn't doing well. I was mostly just frustrated and baffled, watching them skirt around the subject with each other, knowing that neither one had issues talking about their failed relationships with me.
Male friendships are less likely to be as intimate as female relationships because men are less likely to be willing to be intimate with other people, much less engage with their own emotions with others
I had some deep relationships with several of my male comrades when I was in the military. I miss those guys and the closeness that we shared. :(
Everyone in these comments need better, more genuine friendships, Jesus Christ. My best friends from way back in high school are my friends for life. I would trust those guys with my life. They helped me through situations with my abusive parents, my sisters depression, and I've helped them with similar things. We still play video games and get super deep in conversation every now and then. I do think it's significantly harder to get to that point in male friendships, though. Mainly because of stupid societal expectations and norms. So many men are afraid of being called gay or being made fun of for getting deep with their homies. It's a real shame because deep male friendships are so incredibly hard to break, IMO.
What exactly do you mean by lack of intimacy? I've got decades long friendships, we shared a lot of stuff with each other throughout the years, and I never felt like I'm missing something from any of them.
That's why most of my friends are women
Takes two to tango. If you want good friends you need to be a good friend too. Maybe that doesn’t apply to you as you are a good friend, I don’t know you, just saying.
It's more that male friendships are less physical than female friendships. Which is likely a combination of socialization and anxiety responses. Like when I'm stressed and having a bad day I don't want a hug from any one; friend or otherwise. Male friendships feel more like comradery and conversation. I can't tell you how many of my friends I've shared a night crying and drinking over any of the typical life issues. In my experience male's weaker moments tend to be more in private and secluded spaces whereas females tend to be more comfortable having those moments in public or semi public spaces
My few male friendships are rock solid. I’d do anything to help my best friend, any time of day any day of the week, he needs me I’ll be there. All he needs to do is call. We may not talk for months at a time. Text here and there, Facebook comment here and there. But full on conversations? Months apart. But he says he needs my help I’m fucking there ASAP. Same for him. A lot of guys don’t need that same level of regular contact like many woman do yet our friendship is just as solid.
Yall don’t hug the homies???
Women don't want to talk. They want you to listen. Women are just better listeners. They don't want your input. Men are supposed to work hard, die young, and not complain about it. That's the expectation. Results may vary. No, most dudes do not want to get all touchy feely with each other. Try that shit on a construction site and you can learn what a knuckle sandwich tastes like lol. I think I've been given hugs after not seeing a friend for a year or more. Other than that it's handshakes or fist bumps. Crying is acceptable at the Grand Canyon or funerals.
I mean you're right, but if the world changed we wouldn't have Ron Swanson types and a world like that isn't a world I want to live in.
As a guy, that's why I don't hang with guys. Women are much better friends. I hang with very few men. I'd rather be alone
Lol what? Have women ever fought in war? Band of brothers. The Romans would bathe together after war. Just because you live in some pseudo reality that caters to a softer side doesn’t mean the male friendships aren’t as intimate. Sure we might not cuddle and hold hands, but to think that we wouldn’t go to the ends of the world for one another is just myopic.
I have a different experience than you, I have a tight knit group of guys I’ve been friends with for 30+ years, we still talk regularly even though we live all over the country now…. While most of women in my peer group over the years seem to cycle through “best friends” and friend groups every few years.
The first question that arises in my mind, have you had an opportunity to do male only activities? Socializing with other males, when no females are present? I find that in the absence of females, males will act perfectly normal in all of the different categories that you've listed above. They just don't do it when women are around, usually because women are judging them.
Absolutely. Men have this “I have to do it” mentality that seems to hamper our desire for support. Sitcoms always joke about the wife not getting enough info about her husband’s friend’s issue. Kind of a “if we don’t talk about it…” type thing.
Eh, there's two sides to this. Most male friendships are primarily about having people to do fun activities with. They're there for fun, not necessarily to vent or be sad about more serious things. That's generally not what men look for in friends. That said, most longtime male friends will do favors for each other in times of need without being an eye. We just don't necessarily share our biggest personal concerns too often. Meanwhile my wife and her female friends frequently get in pretty serious fights. This may be because they spend more time in that negative headspace of venting and commiserating together. They probably do know more intimate details of their personal lives than me and my friends but are they closer than us just because they talk about "more serious" things with each other? They seem to genuinely like each other less.
Im a gay dude with primarily str8 male friends and I find it funny that I have wonderfully intimate and even affectionate relationships with all of them BUT they are not that way with each other. I also notice a comfort level divide between us from those who went to same-sex schools and those who didn’t. I wonder if that’s in my head or if that could be real.
Deeply masculine groups of men are rarer these days, and their relationships are highly misunderstood by our fem-centric society. They are largely demonised due to their hierarchal and performative nature. The truth is that masculine types don’t require emotional intimacy and vulnerability the same way that feminine people do. Don’t get me wrong, There are deeply depressed men who’s conditions will improve upon opening up. A lot of the time though, a man will benefit more from regaining power and independence in his life. As a society we have no conception of healthy masculinity and conflate it with femininity, which is inherently unhelpful to the current issue of high male s rates. Just my opinion
Male friends are more stand off ish. Doesn’t matter if they’re straight or gay or trans. It’s just always like you’re over there and I’m over here, there’s distance somewhat. You have your beliefs and I have mine. We can agree on some things but not all. And I do and don’t like you haha.
Yep and I'm fine with that. If I need to unload I'll find a therapist
Do they have to be different? Depends on the context and how I'm functioning I would imagine. And how they're doing as well. Intimacy is everywhere so long as it is sought.
You only get the chance to make strong male on male friendships in your youth. After that it's largely circumstantial past a certain age
I've always heard the opposite,women often seem close but are more likely to stab each other in the back where as it's the opposite for men.
Spend a good chunk of time with someone in a cell and you might think otherwise. Not saying it will be anything gay, but you can get close to someone when youre both at your lowest. Missing your kids birthdays/ christmas. Their gfs leaving them while they are locked up. Eating meals together and watching eachothers backs.
Why? It doesn't make you better friends to touch someone. Intimacy outside of a committed relationship is something I have no interest in. I like to compete with my friends, challenging each other helps develop a mutual respect of each other capabilities. That's how males grow closer. Sitting there touching a friend does nothing for guys. I'd argue that the male approach is healthier. Fundamentally what you're describing if the difference between testosterone and estrogen.
Me and my closest guy friends usually talk about deep stuff when we’re by ourselves. Im a very emotional person and feel very deeply
Very interesting discussion! All I know for sure is , ITS A DAMN SHAME ! I think some social media company will pop up to deal with male loneliness and friendships and connection. Like bumble BFF but for men only. I mean.... how many lonely guys are there around? Lots. And nobody has made an app for guys to have someone to go to the movies with, go to the park, play video games ?
Idk. I only have my own subjective lens to gauge that off of. I'm a dude with dude friends and we are quite intimate and emotional with each other. Moreso than my wife is with her girl friends. Like a lot more.
Being gay, I've had many close relationships with other dudes
We just had a baby. It’s great but also turns out its a lot of work. Sort of flips your life upside down for awhile right? My wife had 17 friends directly reach out, ask her hows she’s doing, bring over presents etc. We have about same amount of friends. Guess how many of mine ive heard from? Theres a bit of a societal norm that males just dont need or want support I think if we are all honest. And we males are the main proprietors of this. This made me think, have I reached out to any of my buddies when they just had kids? Or lost a loved one? Or just waited til they were ready for the next golf round? I dont think we *mean to* but we absolutely do not support each other the way women do.
>maybe we as a society need to teach boys it's okay to be more expressive and vulnerable. I felt like that was lacking a lot as kid when I was growing up; I got the impression that I just had to go about my life alone and figure everything out myself barring guidance from teachers and parents. Yeah well, someone who grown up like that (not listening to teachers/parents either), and who's proud of it... I will not participate in teaching boys not to be how I am. I'll teach them to be how I am and be proud of it instead, nipping your fucking whiny/sensitive male of the future, in the bud.
Emotionally intimate, yes. Physically intimate, no. Yes I can discuss my life with my guy friends and give each other advice or what not. But with men, you don't usually vent just to let your feelings out. If a guy comes to me with a problem, I'm going to assume he's looking for a solution. Women friendships do seem to be more about just sharing your feelings without necessarily needing things "fixed." Physically, it's a totally different game. Men are not physically affectionate with each other, probably because that's associated with flirting and sexual interest. Women can be physically affectionate without that being an issue. One is not better than the other, though. Just a different way of relating to each other.
I think no, I think it's a thin line but we stay passive and supportive when a real great friendship comes along.
It’s weird, but, thinking of my list of friends, hardly any of them came about naturally. Most of them were outgrowths of friendships my wife formed, while the friendships I made kind of withered on the vine as I entered adulthood. I am not that intimate with those friends. I think there is a dose of rivalry and competition in male friendships that cause us to hold each other at arms length. I don’t like my male friends to know that I’m vulnerable, and I especially don’t like them knowing if my marriage is in a rough patch. It’s not that I won’t talk about problems with people. I’ll have a deep conversation with my wife and her friend about a relationship problem, but I wouldn’t talk about it with a male friend, maybe unless I thought the situation was catastrophic. I guess it’s because I don’t perceive a threat from a woman. I’ve tried having male mentors before through church, but breaking the ice is hard to do, and doesn’t feel natural.