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Are men’s friendships inferior ?
Men at an outing
What you need to know:
BONDS. The mystery of men’s friendships is one the female gender ponders on especially when men chose their friends over their better half. Today we try to understand what binds men together.
Almost every other weekend, a couple of guys I have known for the last 15 years and I meet up to watch the beautiful game of rugby and share a drink or many. The conversation heralds from sports, and women, to politics, punctuated with a lot of trash talking and dirty jokes. During this time, not once does anybody bring up how they feel nor does anybody feel the need to share their deepest darkest secrets. Any form of hand holding is shunned while crying is only permissible under the premise that your team has lost (yes, the Liverpool fans cry a lot) or you have lost someone.
Source of sanity
From afar, this relationship may look superficial and seem simply held together by the love for beer, sport and profanity. But after a long week of work and enormous responsibility, this interaction provides the escape a brother surely needs. I call it my spiritual journey back to sanity and I would not trade those few hours for anything in the world. Unless the price is right.
For long, the bench mark for fulfilling relationships has been the female version of events. With anything short of that found wanting. To such an extent that some sociologists thought, men as unable to share meaningful relationships amongst each other because of their limited expression of emotion. In other words, if I don’t pour my heart out or feel the urge to call my friends every other 20 minutes, then somehow, our friendship is not as fulfilling.
This ideology is starting to become propagated by Hollywood and mainstream media hence the evolution of words like “bromance” and “man date”. The latter being instances where straight guys hit the town together and indulge in activities like dinner or watch a movie in a bid to foster a platonic relationship. Our ancestors who hunted together, fought in wars side by side and did all sorts of manly things must be surely rolling in their graves at the thought of this. Michael Kimmel, author of the book, The Gendered Society calls this feminisation of friendship.
Different game plans
There is no denying that when it comes to relationships, men and women have a totally different mode of operation. For instance, Anthony Kizito, a behavioural psychologist points out that men tend to be friends in groups that is, three or more guys while women often roll as a duet. Women are more intimate, revealing and personal with their friends while most men elevate their spouses, sister or female friend to sole confidant. Women are supportive by listening while men are supportive by giving advice. Women place value on frequent contact with friends and reach more to friends to maintain contact. On other hand two buddies who have not seen each other for two years will meet and behave like they see each other every other day
Paul H. Wright, a psychologist from North Dakota University US, in his paper on sex roles, referred to men as having shoulder to shoulder relationships while women shared face to face friendships. That is to say men are more comfortable interacting with other men while doing activities side by side like sports and drinking. While women on the hand are comfortable facing each other, a process that usually involves talking and conversation. From this, he concluded that men love their friends for what they can do together while women preferred their friends for what they can talk about. It may be an overgeneralisation, but this train of thought seems to fit the status quo unless of course you are Italian.
Where the value is
No outsider can objectively quantify or understand the value of a relationship or call one form of friendship superior to the other. The remarkableness of any relationship is entirely subjective and dependent on an individual’s level of personal satisfaction and expectation. One author points out a woman may be a man’s better half, but his friends are his other self.
Therefore, it goes without saying that from time to time a man should cohort with individuals who pee the same way he does. The beauty about male friendships is that it is not about being agreeable. It is about you being yourself and the other person just being them.
