Why Men's Friendships Are Different
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
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 ;-)
I can tell you though, from personal experience, most of my friendships with other guys, and their friendships with other guys, follow this pattern to the letter, particularly the "Gee, dude, that's too bad. Want us to deal you out this hand?" phenomenon.
That said, there's a lot of subtext that goes into a statement like that: it's not callous or cold or ignorant, rather, what it really says is "I really do feel bad for you, but we have an understanding that I know if I were in your position I'd probably rather be left alone so I'll do the same to you, but if you really do want to talk about it later you're welcome to (though we both know you probably won't)".
I've also noticed (with a few exceptions) that guys are generally a lot quicker to forgive each other after an argument. We'll argue more violently, sure, but there's a period of time, and usually a place, for airing one's grievances, and an understanding that afterward, we'd rather just both forgive each other so we can be friends again.
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.
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.
(FWIW, my ex didn't really grasp this either: "Why do you need to go out with so and so tonight? You hang out with your friends at work every day")
I know one guy who behaves like that. I found this out one day my wife was mad at me and I needed to talk to someone but he just pretended not to hear. I felt insulted until a mutual friend explained to me he always does this. Since then I have thought of him as an emotional cripple. This article actually makes me more tolerant. There are apparently many more guys like that out there, so many that it seems like another way of being normal.
I don't know how much of this is cultural. This friend obviously comes from the same culture as me. I'm swiss, so I would expect to have less in common with an indian than with someone from the wall street journal.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
I'm much the same way. It can make relationships hard. I have to remember that women typically get mad at me if they tell me of troubles and I try to help them solve them. I have to remember they only want sympathy, not a solution, no matter how simple the solution might be.
She responded by telling me that whenever anyone comes to me with problems, I try to give them an answer (why else would they be coming to me, right?!?). She told me people don't always want solutions to their problems, they just want someone to listen to them. She didn't apply this to only girls, as some guys I know seem to deal with their problems in the same way. This is something I still don't really understand but this article sheds a little light on the subject.
This isn't confined to boys and girls. Imagine parents saying -- "Kids! Do X! It is good for you!" The response is of course "but you don't understand me!"
This is the problem. It's hard to hear advice from someone you don't think understands you. For whatever reason, boys in this culture have a lower threshold for giving advice (though who knows who's more likely to actually take it).
The process of being listened to isn't mere venting. Being able to tell your story helps you to understand it. The solutions you come to will be your own, and you'll feel more confident about enacting them. Hardly anyone follows advice anyway; the storytelling and listening process seems just as a effective as a collective decision making strategy as giving advice directly.
To take this a step further, one can actively listen. By asking the right questions (frequently, posing them in an open ended way; using the word "how" is effective), you can encourage the person to examine their problem from a different perspective. The other benefit is that you gain a better understanding as a result.
Therapists commonly use this approach.
This is a matter of points of view - for men (esp. programmers) problem solving POV is the default, but they can switch to just listening from time to time, if the women doesn't charge them responsible for these problems.
It works the other way too - if some "on the spot advice" slips from me when I listen to my wife she shouldn't be angry - I didn't meant to dismiss her, sometimes I just can't help it.
A little understanding and everything is much simpler.
How can you determine if he can solve it without talking to him about it first?
Also, are you implying that you'd like to work out a solution for your broken fishing boat? :)
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.
It might be hard to get funding, though.
It would appear that the research on the subject is somewhat spotty and often gets misinterpreted, sometimes at the source.
I found a book on amazon the other day called Pink Brain, Blue Brain by neuroscientist Lise Elliot, which is next up on my reading list.
http://www.amazon.com/Pink-Brain-Blue-Differences-Troublesom...
One study I read about described a situation where the researchers bundled the same baby up and told some people that it was a boy and others that it was a girl. The people who thought it was a girl tended to comfort the baby when it got fussy, and the people who thought it was a boy tended to try to distract it.[1] Subtle, but I can imagine that there are other ways that we train girls to be more 'face to face'.
[1] from http://www.amazon.com/Failing-At-Fairness-Schools-Cheat/dp/0... --marred by some selection bias in the data they used, but very interesting nonetheless.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.