
Why Men's Friendships Are Different - tokenadult
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052702304620304575166090090482912.html
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raju
I am not sure how I feel about this article. Either this article is way off
base, or I am just an odd duck. Perhaps there is a cultural bias too (I am
Indian).

Regardless, almost all of my close friends happen to be female, and I love the
conversations! I love the discussions about their lives, about what's going
on, how they are reacting to it. Not to mention that they think I have an
empathetic ear, and occasionally come to me just to talk, if not to get some
advice.

Even my conversations with my male friends almost never leads to sports or go
off-base from the topic at hand. I prefer to listen to find out the crux of
the issue, and never stop at the "Oh! That's too bad" as the article explains.
If a friend of mine had lost a job or was having expecting a baby, assuming
they are willing, I _want_ to know how they are approaching it, what about it
scares/motivates them the most, if they need some help etc.

That's not to say that there is no place to sit and talk technology or world
politics with a couple of friends over a few beers, but that's not all I do. I
agree with tokenadult - this article bears no semblance to me or most of my
male friends.

Could be just me though ;-)

~~~
timwiseman
Thank you for the perspective from a different culture.

I was struck by the articles "Oh! That's too bad" part too. If a close friend
told me they were having a problem, I would want to know how I could help. If
they were having serious health problems they may need some extra help with
their "honey-do" list or someone to watch the kids so they can take their wife
with them to the hospital. If they lost a job, maybe I know someone who is
hiring. Etc...

Yes, if it is something I can't do anything about than offer sympathy, then
they probably won't get too much more than a "that's too bad" from me and they
may be better off talking to women close to them. But you often don't know
what kind of advice or direct support your friend is capable of offering until
you make your friends aware you have a problem. That is often why men I know
share their problems, they are hoping for something useful even if they know
the odds are low.

~~~
ecoffey
I would have to disagree with the other repliers that this is cultural. I was
born and raised in the US (assuming that is the culture the article was
working from), and I very much agree with a lot of what you said.

I have a decent number of healthy friendships, where I cherish and seek out
those deeper conversations, where we both goof off, or nerd out or something
or whatever. Some of those friends are girls and some of them are dudes. Sure
the female friendships are more likely to end up that way, but I would argue
that the length of the friendship and time you put in are bigger factors in
terms of getting to the "My girlfriend just left, holy fuck what happens now"
kind of conversations.

------
zefhous
This article seems like it belongs on some sleazy askmen.com type of site
rather than the WSJ.

There are a number of things wrong with the logic here. These are sweeping
generalizations that in my experience don't come close to reality. If there is
any truth to this, I could see it only existing in select situations as
described in the article like poker night or going to a football game with a
group of men. People behave differently in groups than they do in one on one
situations.

Also, as raju mentioned, I'm sure that a good amount of this is cultural. Even
within western culture there are vastly differing cultural groups.
Generalizations like this simply don't work, and I think it's harmful to
entertain "stories" like this.

~~~
wdewind
"This article seems like it belongs on some sleazy askmen.com type of site
rather than the WSJ."

Hit the nail on the head...to even be having comparisons on the level of men
vs. women is showing a shocking lack of nuance for WSJ...

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aero142
It seems the article misses the point of outings with the boys. Men tend not
to bring things up unless there is some discussion about how to fix it. 4
dudes can't fix someone's health problems, but they can go fishing, which at
least makes the now pretty good, even though the immediate future might not
be. Having good people around you reminds you that if you did come across
something that could be fixed, the guy next to you in the fishing boat would
help out.

~~~
yalurker
Exactly! If the wife in the story wanted to know why her husband didn't talk
about any of the various men's problems on their fishing trip, she could have
just asked the rhetorical question "how would talking about the problem while
fishing make the problem go away?"

I will talk to a friend about a problem only if they can help solve it. I have
absolutely no desire to try to get empathy or sympathy.

~~~
callahad
_I will talk to a friend about a problem only if they can help solve it._

Huh. I find that talking to many and sundry friends about problems helps me to
understand the problem. Something about refining how I articulate the issue
helps me organize it in my mind, which in turn informs any action I may take.

~~~
cwp
Wouldn't that qualify as "only if they can help solve it?"

~~~
roundsquare
Exactly. If its "I'm trying to find a new job but I don't get past the resume
point" your friends can help.

If its "I have bone cancer and I'm doing to die in a few years" there's
nothing your friends can do to solve the problem.

~~~
dgabriel
They can't solve the cancer, but there are a plethora of other problems they
can help solve on the way. Having a terminal illness introduces a great number
of issues, and sometimes just talking helps determine the problem space.

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seanmcq
There's not a single statistic in this entire article. I'm left with the
conclusion that it's nothing except anecdotal sexist rambling.

~~~
tokenadult
_There's not a single statistic in this entire article._

True that. This is a very common shortcoming of many blog posts, but that
doesn't keep those from being submitted to HN in great number.

------
stavrianos
less "why" and more "how". Which is a shame, because "why" would be
interesting.

~~~
hugh3
The sexist-yet-probably-true answer: because women are emotionally weak
creatures who get upset over minor things and feel the need to share. Men are
better at stoically shrugging off the minor problems of life.

Also, men are better at nonverbal communication. If a friend has good news or
bad news it's sufficient for me to say "Hey, congrats!" or "Bummer, that sucks
dude", and we both know exactly where we stand. There's no need to spend
several thousand words on agreeing with each other on exactly how good or bad
the news is.

edit: Also, men and women find different things interesting. Women are far
more interested in "feelings" and "relationships" as complicated objects
worthy of discussion, whereas men see them as simple things unworthy of too
much brainpower and would much rather think about "things" or "ideas". This
explains why groups of men and groups of women will choose to talk about the
things they find interesting, and why many man-woman conversations are doomed
to be deathly boring to one partner or the other.

~~~
timwiseman
I must respectfully beg to differ.

Few the women I know are "emotionally weak." They do tend to be less stoic
than men, but that is very different from weak, and I suspect that is at least
partially cultural. I do think men are more stoic about dealing with minor
problems in life (in general), but that has to do with how they express it,
not how well they actually deal with it.

I also tend to find that men, in general, are less wordy, especially about
emotional topic, but I think that is less about men being better at nonverbal
communication. In fact, I find in general, the women I know are stronger in
that area. The difference is that women tend to spend a lot of words agreeing
as a cultural means of bonding, where men don't. This doesn't mean they do it
for communication, they do it for affirmation of the relationship.

I will agree that, in general, women are more interested in feelings and
relationships then men, but not because these are simple things or
unimportant, or even that most men see them that way. It is simply a
difference of focus. For instance, I do not find medicine "a simple thing
unworthy of too much brainpower", I rather find that it is outside my domain
and I let doctors worry about that while I worry about normalization and
effecient storage structures...

~~~
yters
Emotional weakness is probably too general of a term. Two things seem to be
true: men are better at pushing aside their emotions to achieve their goals,
and women are better at not making irrational decisions based on things like
egoism and vengeance.

------
winter_blue
"I've played poker with the same guys every Thursday night for 18 years. _We
rarely talk about our lives._ We talk about cards, betting, bluffing."

The author obviously hasn't experienced a real close friendship with another
male.

My close friends and I share a lot of our thoughts on life, our feelings,
aspirations, we talk to each other about it, give each other advice,
suggestions & support.

I feel bad for the author for not having experienced a true close friendship.
He wanted an explanation why he didn't have a true close friend(s) like women
do, but just couldn't admit it was him not having found a true friend; so he
writes this article generalizing his situation to be a problem experienced by
all males.

------
dustingetz
okay, sure, but my relationship with a girlfriend IS face-to-face (not side-
by-side). it's not that we don't want intimacy, its just that if we're merely
drinking buddies, I don't care. Maybe women have social pressure and
upbringing that prompts them to pretend to care, or need to care out of being
a socialite, and men don't face those pressures so just don't bother.

~~~
nfnaaron
It's an obviously complicated question.

Men and women are different. They are, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Different people fall at different points along their stereotype lines.

Where the difference can lead to conflict is when people on opposite sides of
that difference don't notice or acknowledge it, and/or don't accept it. "How
could you possibly think different from me?"

Anecdote of one: When my kid was four in pre-school their class played a game
where they threw water balloons out on a measured field. Each time the balloon
didn't break you threw again.

When the balloon broke you were to go stand at the side of the field, at the
distance where your balloon broke, to mark your score.

All the boys stood proudly by their distances. All the girls clustered with
the first girl at her score point.

There may be social pressure for men and women to act as their stereotypes,
but I think it comes in part from actual differences.

~~~
cma
I really doubt this is the case at the age of four. Before puberty, it is
almost certainly all social differences.

------
yason
I'm pretty terrified if there are men who only have shallow friendships like
in the poker night example. It's true that probably only men are capable of
such relationships, though.

Yes, I have those shallow friendships too but their purpose is _to have fun_.
We talk about computers, photography, cars, stuff like that, and usually while
doing something. However, if those were all I had I would feel _really_
lonely.

For me, it's absolutely essential to have few (male) friends who are close and
with whom I can talk about and reflect my life. I share things with my wife
too but you can't share everything with one close person and you shouldn't. A
wife equals not an amateur friend therapist. You might want to mention your
fears and problems to her but you don't want to dwell in them with her.

I have a feminine side like every person, male or female, and I think it's
hugely valuable to have a male guy or two who can respond to that, too. The
feminine side is a much smaller part of me than my masculine side but it's
still there and if I were to only acknowledge the latter, I would be missing
quite a lot in life.

Life can rarely be solved, in the masculine problem-solving way; you can only
live it. Pretty much all you can "solve" in your life is change your attitude,
and in order to do that you have to recognize and acknowledge what part of you
feels bad. Talking helps in that; in fact, trying to consider it a solvable
problem and fix myself would only drive me further from the change I'm
eventually going after.

But I sure like going karting racing with my friends or having beers and a few
good problems to solve: that's fun! I just also acknowledge that it's only one
part of me.

------
joshuaeckroth
"'I wouldn't talk about my insecurities with the guys,' says Mr. Schulsinger,
a consultant. 'All my real insecurities about work, finances, the kids those I
share with my wife.'" - i.e., the wife bears it all, and the guys just have
fun. Of course, the wife is usually uncredited for this work.

~~~
smallblacksun
The wife probably shares everything with her husband AND her girlfriends.

------
rythie
Suddenly all those answer sites like Yahoo Answers, Answers.com, Mahalo
Answers etc. seem very male oriented.

Though someone posting that their computer is broken only to receive answers
like "yes, I'm listening" and "I understand" is probably not be that useful.

------
iskander
>Researchers say women's friendships are face to face: They talk, cry
together, share secrets. Men's friendships are side by side: We play golf. We
go to football games.

That mode of friendship sounds terrible to me. I'm male and I like to be
active with my friends (biking, hiking, going to shows, etc...). However,
talking about the important pieces of your life (the happy stuff, anxieties,
depressing things, etc...) atop a mountain or over a beer are absolutely
essential. I feel like the author is foolishly generalizing from his own
social life. I would probably feel alienated and unsupported if I had friends
like his.

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roundsquare
There might be some good research behind this article, but the way the author
says things destroys the point. He takes things to extremes (maybe to get a
laugh?) which makes the whole article silly.

