I can't find the source anymore, but I once heard a pretty interesting theory: Men use banter as a form of indirect emotional connection. Playing rough with your male friends is like 'bouncing balls off their emotional walls'. As long as your friend reacts in a relaxed way, you know everything is alright. But if he seems uncomfortable, you know something is up and can offer support directly (by asking) or indirectly (by just being there and providing an outlet untouched by whatever's bothering him).
That's definitely still a point in favor of the article's main thesis (that men have a strange relationship to openly displaying emotions and emotional connections), but this way of viewing men's banter evidently was interesting enough that it has stuck with me for a few years now.
"You might be a laugh, but you have a vibe where other people aren’t going to share their innermost personal stuff. They get a feeling that you’re not able to give it back."
Or, you know, rip the piss out of them for sharing anything that matters.
Anyone else find this piece curiously unreflective? There appears to be only one way in which men can interact with other men, drunken banter. It's a never-ending episode of Men Behaving Badly. And the answer, it turns out, is _not_ to try and go beyond what amounts to a juvenile way of interacting with people, but... be better at organising activities where that "belligerent way of occupying space" can happen?
I think it's actually your comment that is unreflective. Obviously the "established" male approach must have some benefits, if it became dominant over the millennia; so the point is to find an equilibrium where it can continue to exist side by side with other approaches. Saying that it should just be obliterated from existence is unrealistic and unproductive.
That begs the question: it assumes that that _is_ the "established" male approach. Moreover the premise of the article is that he's discovering that it is an approach that, increasinly, isn't working for him, and is a road to a lonely middle age.
One thing I had to learn is how to share my miseries with my friends. (In limited amounts) if you don't share your friends won't feel empowered/comfortable enough to share and you might lose an opportunity to help them.
Important addendum is to to spread the miseries around so that no one friend is overloaded
You can banter and hug. That's very common. This psych sounds like many other "experts" that drum up a hypothesis based on hypothetical information and treat it like a theory when they cherry pick the outcomes they want.
Should-to-shoulder derring-do? Goose sat behind Maverick for all daring stuff. Achilles and Patroclus are never on the battlefield at the same time during the course of the Iliad.
Max, the reason noone wants to be friends with you is that you write for the Gaurdian and relentlessly spout feminist propaganda about toxic masculinity
Seems funny to say that under a piece that basically reinforces the traditional "male way of life" (which is rare, in the Guardian, where anything related to men's health is typically covered by women).
That's definitely still a point in favor of the article's main thesis (that men have a strange relationship to openly displaying emotions and emotional connections), but this way of viewing men's banter evidently was interesting enough that it has stuck with me for a few years now.