Comment by raju | Hacker News Reader

Comment by raju | Hacker News Reader

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 ;-)

I'll have to say this is probably cultural, and like most such things, is nowhere near globally true.

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 think part of the problem is that this article doesn't recognize different categories of friends. The guys I play poker with or go out on a hike with aren't necessarily my closest friends. But there's other guys where we get together, typically one-on-one, and have serious discussions about our relationships, our kids, our fears and concerns in life.

(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")

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.

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.

No semblance to me neither.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com