Why Some Men Struggle to Keep Up with Friendships
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
At first I didn’t think much of it, but over time it started to feel one-sided. What really made me stop and think was when they forgot my birthday. Not a huge deal by itself, but it made me notice the patern, that I was putting in way more than I was getting back.
So I slowly pulled back. stopped organizing, stopped trying to keep things going. No drama, just less involvement. And, honestly, I feel a lot better now. Less drained, less frustrated, more at ease overall.
Not sure what to think of it, from one standpoint I basically decided to cut connection with a group of people I was spending my time with for the last ~10 years, from another I decided to keep my energy and focus on myself. These days I mostly hang out with my fiancee and her friends, but in a much more low-key way.
I can cut down a tree. But it's fun with friends.
I can do bad home renno but it's an in to keeping up with friends with a quick photo of the latest win/fail on signal /whatever floats your boat.
Because they're friends they might just say yes.
It's OK to ask them how they're going. Sometimes they will reply sometimes not and that's OK too.
The point of enlightenment is when you realise they never ask you that.
It helps to know who you are, what you want, and what you can do about it.
only a few respond each time, and only about half the time one or two can make it out, but over time eventually all of them do
This has become a problem as I'm getting older and have lost friends over the years, but not replaced them
I think that's the core of it for many people. We lose or become distanced from friends over time for all sorts of reasons. People move, get married, have kids, or maybe you just grow apart. It happens. But if you don't replace those connections then you eventually wind up with none
For my personal expense, I have found a lot of men view other men as competitors to be guarded against. You can't begin to work with the building blocks of trust and communication without getting past that first barrier. So we often just stop at the gate.
edit: I was going to link a specific one I found a few weeks ago, but it turns out there are tons of them now, so I’ll just explain the idea. Most of these apps are basically reminder tools disguised as simple little games. A common example is a flower garden. Each “flower” represents a friend, and you keep the flower alive by staying in touch. That might mean sending a message or planning a hangout. If you don’t, the flower wilts, just like a real one would without care.
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“What you see at fight club is a generation of men raised by women.”
― Fight Club
Meanwhile, I had no problem working with any of the women (although it's true, they were cruel among themselves), but when I had to interact with men in other departments, it felt like some macho standoff. It's like when you go to shake a guy's hand, and he pulls your arm and crushes your hand, but baked into every interaction.
I am lucky not to have friendship struggles; I have a vibrant social circle with close male and female friends. I talk with my male friends more often, but the conversations are not very meaningful. For most of them, it is hard to break through and have talks that require vulnerability. I don't know why.
In contrast, my close female friends are great in this regard. They are open, empathetic, and kind. The conversations I have with them often leave me feeling a stronger connection. They are far more substantive.
And yes, some of my male friends are ignorant and hold (IMO) ugly opinions.
We have a free Slack workspace where a few of us keep in touch and share things. It's pretty active.
My oldest has made a few friends in kindergarten, but so far we haven't really hung out with those kids/parents outside of a few birthday parties.
lots of parents are in the same boat as you and more willing to get together as they may not have an established group yet , as the kids get older the social groups are already established and harder to break into
I have my wife, my kids and some people i work with. I dont care any more.