Posted on 12/31/2013 10:46:10 PM PST by Farnsworth
Male friendship is formed around jokes, favors, and associations -- all things under attack.
I got a telephone in my room right when “Boy Meets World” was getting big. I saw the characters chatting on the phone daily and mistook a studio cost-cutting device for how friends interacted. So I grabbed the school directory and called up my best friend at the moment, Sean.
“Hi?”
“Hey, it’s Billy”
“Okay…”
The call was over in seconds. We played full contact 500 on an asphalt driveway the next day with nary a mention of the awkward conversation. Like I said, my best friend. I never realized that the exchange made me more likely to commit suicide. At least that’s what Occidental College sociology professor Lisa Wade says in Salon’s latest men-are-doing-it-wrong column.
Wade says American men—specifically white heterosexuals—lack the intimate bonds necessary to lead fulfilling lives.
“The friendships they have, if they’re with other men, provide less emotional support and involve lower levels of self-disclosure and trust than other types of friendships,” Wade writes.
It’s an observation rooted in experience. Go to enough barbecues and you’ll notice that people tend to self-segregate: Women form circles around living room tables and discuss their feelings; men crowd around the grill, eyes locked on the meat, to discuss grilling techniques.
It wasn’t always this way, Wade argues.
Research shows that boys are just as likely as girls to disclose personal feelings to their same-sex friends and they are just as talented at being able to sense their friends’ emotional states.
But, at about age 15 to 16 — right at the same age that the suicide rate of boys increases to four times the rate of girls — boys start reporting that they don’t have friends and don’t need them.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
my thoughts exactly. Point is, there are very few male dominated places to go.
Female up and front as the lead and main draw. She’s a pleasure to look at however.
I think just about all colleges have some kind of Lisa Wade
hope they don’t act to male or some female diagnostician will prescribe ritalin, the drug of choice for abhorrent male behavior.
Women still have their clubs but men can’t even have Lion’s Club anymore without women!
My BIL, who routinely complains that his wife has his testicles in a box, is addicted to his “Men’s Group”. He can go on and on about “male bonding.”
We cannot figure out what this accomplishes, except it is somewhere he can go to get out from under the thumb of his wife. After 20 years, he appears even more emasculated than ever.
Scores of them, to our societal detriment.
Why on Earth would I have “meaningful, emotionally revealing” conversation with anyone that doesn’t have boobs? I’ve got enough women in my life that can inflict that kind of torture on me all there own.
If you’re a guy friend of mine all I want is for you to hand me a beer and watch the game in silence.
“However, thanks to homosexuality being a huge factor, male relationships have been largely curtailed.”
I have a very hard time believing that any man is curtailing his male friendships because he’s worried about appearing gay.
I suspect it’s more about the rise of isolating activities like video games and the Internet (we used to watch football games together in bars, now everybody watches at home to track their fantasy stats) combined with economic pressures to work more and more.
Women expect men to act like them. Men Generally are happy with your description of a male relationship....with suitable crude insults tossed in at random times.
The women we had for companions were like minded.
I don't know what to do about the thought I just typed out ...
But, there it is ...
Women fail to see that male groups are divers.
Yours was/is sounds like a fun group. Mine is polar opposite, we are the “nerd” herd. Movies of the guy variety, sci-fi, books of the same nature and since we are all IT guys, computers and gaming, mixed with various insults of the crude nature and making others the butt of inside jokes.
Women think man culture is simplistic, basic and all the same. it’s not
Good posts thank you for sharing. If we were in our no-girls allowed club I would gladly shake your hands, high-five, or whatever the man code is!
Yes, I did. Thanks.
thanks..
now that I’ve figured out the posting process here on FR, I’ll try and find some good articles to post.
This particular subject is a hot button issue for me.
Townies all know each other through school or their trades, no metros here. They talk to each other and help each other, with in limits.
They all are very non PC and hate Obama.
Most male friends seem to be a lot needier than I am. And a lot of my male middle aged single friends seem to be losing their edge in the manhood dept...turning into stir crazy hausfraus.
I like my solo time, and a lot of the time I spend listening to some of these guys is out of obligation, I don’t want to say pity. I’m just not that needy with men. I can pass the time of day with any man, but a lady’s good intentions can open me up like a nut (perhaps an unfortunate comparison to use lol)
I like my alone time too. Me and my peeps get together every now and then. After raising an house full of girls, I need the alone and quite time.
I went to the cop in charge Louie and said Neilly sent me down to see you. Nielly was the President of the City workers Union and his son was my best friend.
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