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Or ANY friendships, really... As you get older a couple of things happen:
Your friend group gets more geographically diverse. People move away and do other things.
It gets harder to get everyone together at the same time. Everyone has a different schedule, responsibilities, and priorities.
Trust me, as some weird modern form of atheistic deist, I am not advocating for religion. But there’s something to be said about community values and how it overcomes the issues you’ve mentioned. Church goers don’t seem to struggle as much with getting their schedules in order, making time for community events, doing community service… when these things are seen as virtuous under the eye of their god, they get it done.
What are we missing now that makes modern life lack this community connection it once benefited from and religious folk seem to still have? What’s missing, why’d it go, and how can we get it back?
I feel that part of the reason is the lack of any kind of 3rd-space. And that’s what churches are for some people. (I’m also not religious)
I’ve tried to find others that would want to open up a community makerspace but have had no luck.
(typo)
Yeah, bars are about all that's left. Unhelpful for those of us who don't drink.
Also relationships hinder a good part of male bonding.
many started to wear red caps and that's a no-no
Yeah, if someone in a red cap comes up to me lamenting about how life sucks due to inflation/lack of jobs, I'm gonna laugh right in their face.
Or became super religious and changed their whole personality.
It's pretty rare for a "deep" friendship to work in spite of external changes (having kids, moving for work, politics) AND internal changes (generational experience, level of maturity, dealing with personal stressors)
Instead of looking for a nostalgic ideal of friendship, I think its more realistic to just make a goal to place yourself in new social activities that can give you fun moments of human connection.
Honestly, at this point in my middle age, it mainly comes down to: Do we have anything in common? Cool. Can we have a comfortable conversation beyond small talk? Great. Are we both willing to make time to hang? Awesome. Anything "deeper" can come later and organically IF the connection lasts. I can count on my hand how many "deep" friendships remain in my life.
Some men get lucky and have friends that remain trustworthy.
Isn’t that the fucking problem
For me, a lot of those "Deep" friendships weren't so deep at all. We knew each other, but none of us respected each other. We just all did the same drugs, drank the same excess amount and most of us had the same empty bank account.
One day, one of us would just be gone, sometimes cuz they just moved away, or realized how toxic we all were, some of us just found better friends. I talk to a few still, but "Deep"? Nah
I have a girlfriend , i work, I have a cat, there's no time for anything else
I had a friend since 3rd grade. I'm 47 now, we haven't spoken for about 2 years now. Considered him my brother but he went far right and he just stopped talking to me. I find it so strange to because in our 20s he was by far the most liberal of all of us and he kept me from going to the fox news right wing radio brainwashing.
Something happened during COVID, he just lost his mind. And never looked back
I think there's a core difference in "support" that they just started to touch on right at the end of the discussion. Support can take two forms:
The thesis here seems almost entirely focused on "words". As in, "Men do not reach out for words of support as often as women". I would agree. However, when the support needed is "actions" I know myself and men are quick to ask and quick to respond to others asking.
Also frequently while these acts of support are happening words of support are also exchanged. Only at the end of the article did they talk about a fitness group that turned into a community service organization. The actions of support are present here. So I'd argue that men in western society have a high ratio of actions but lower ratio of words of support.
For women reading, how does this compare with relationships you have with other women in friendships? How much is words vs actions?
It's hard to find time when most of us are corporate slaves.
The weirdest thing is all that needs to happen is for men to talk about their feelings, doesn't even have to be another man.
That's it.
But so many men just won't fucking do it.
So it's literally one of the only problems that can actually be solved by raising awareness.
I sometimes question whether the "men don't talk about their feelings" stereotype even holds true for the current generation of men. I surely can, and so do the few male friends I have. I mean, I guess it's still broadly speaking true, but my anecdotal experience just doesn't seem to reflect that too much. Speaking about my feelings has never been an issue for me personally. I even talk about them to people I probably shouldn't.
How you doing? I have been better!
That's probably selection bias.
It’s scary to do, especially if it’s with someone you don’t know very well. But I’ve found every time I opened up other men have been very supportive.
It’s also a little weird to me that the article doesn’t seem to treat women as potentially being supportive, deep friends for men? I don’t think they established a rationale for why it is important that strong friendships be specifically with other men. Any strong friendship should have mental health benefits.
I hear you on your second point. I don't feel like friendships with the opposite sex can't be strong and supportive.
Women definitely can be supportive, deep friends for men. However, it’s really important that we don’t inadvertently perpetuate placing the burden of men’s emotional support entirely on women.
I’m a woman, albeit not one that cares much for gender (or the divisions society creates around it.) I have relationships of all kinds with people across the sex/gender spectrums (I’m pansexual, polyamorous.) The sad truth is that, for a lot of women in hetero relationships, we become the sole emotional support for the men we’re in relationships with. We’re expected to perform emotional labor for them daily, but it isn’t always reciprocated.
Men who have other men they can rely on for emotional support don’t end up putting 100% of their emotional burdens onto their relationship partner, and trust me, that means A LOT. One of the reasons I’m drawn to polyamory is specifically because it leads to a support network - multiple people capable of supporting each other. Having been the one and only “everything” for a partner, back when I was monogamous, was extremely taxing on me. I have my own issues to deal with, and when a man has no one else to turn to besides their partner, the division of emotional labor can easily become a one-way street.
So you are right - there’s no reason women and men can’t be strong friends with each other. But it is crucial that men reach out to each other too, without expecting women to always be the ones to provide emotional support for them.
Decades of societal conditioning will take decades more to repair, unfortunately.
Sure, my wife spends more time with her friends than I do with mine. I wouldn't want to trade though. They seem to have more internal conflicts than we do. Larger groups have more shit to deal with.
My point is that it's not easy to evaluate friendship only based on quantity.
qualitiy over quantity
My old friendships are maintained through annual city breaks where me and my rag-tag group of middle-aged food, beer and cocaine enthusiasts congregate for a weekend of laughing and talking shit. Usually followed by a week of abject depression and a few months of financial ruin. I love it.
In my opinion, guy friendships need to be doing something together. We don't call each other up out of a blue and talk to each other about deep things. We don't share our emotions other than on a high level or in extreme cases.
The good friends I have. I always do stuff with. I have one really good friend who I always hike with every weekend. I have another good friend group that plays video games together most nights. If you remove those people from my life, I don't have a single male friend left that I talk with more than once a year.
I always figured that's why watching and playing sports was so important to guys. It's the glue that holds male friendships together. (Or in my case, playing online video games)
But my fragile ego!
I made a lot of terrible choices in terms of friends. Not exclusively terrible ones, I have several high quality men that I still exchange emails with at least a few times per year, and we talk a lot about lunches and stuff that don't happen... but they're quality men, and we are still friends.
Along with them, two or three times as many dudes who I should've just left where I found em, and who eventually forced me to do so, usually by treating someone else rather than me like shit.
Some others that I know I should have tried harder to move acquaintance into the friendship category.
Sometimes women, you can connect with them better on an emotional level as opposed to men.
Not just women ofc, but generally people who have been socialized to be more empathetic.
I feel like a part of the issue is the quality of the friends out there (including pov). Sure if you get "adopted" by a cool friend or group it's easy to follow their lead, but so many of us don't actually know how to be good friends.