Male Friendships Evolve One Way, Women's Relationships Other. Should We Halt Efforts to Push Men Into Women?
It's good to talk. Or so men are often advised, by everyone from mental health advocates to the partners they live with. These women are perplexed by the common male propensity to pass an entire evening in the pub with longstanding friends, yet come home with no insight about the personal struggles in each other's lives. What might they possibly be doing, all that while? Why haven't they asked how X is handling his breakup, or how Y is managing the loss of his father?
For women, whose own friendships typically center on an deep and detailed understanding of each other's innermost feelings, this form of male intimacy—based on apparently avoiding serious conversation—can look strangely hollow and unfulfilling. It's no surprise, we think, that over a quarter of UK men report having no close friends; that male loneliness is widespread; that many hesitate to visit a doctor unless seriously ill; that male suicide rates consistently exceed female ones; and that many middle-aged men, in particular, seem permanently angry for unarticulated reasons. Suppressing everything up helps nobody.
Rethinking the Value of Silent Companionship
Yet, as per researcher Thomas Yarrow, this perspective may undervalue the strengths of the resilient and silent friendship. Professor Yarrow, from Durham University, was researching volunteers at a heritage steam railway in the north of England when he was impressed with the bond forged among these mostly older men. His lengthy study has been distilled into a paper contending that, particularly for men brought up in an era of the emotional restraint, the value of friendships centered on shared hobbies—"doing things together, often in comfortable silence"—may be underappreciated.
This quiet model of friendship "is not deficient or anachronistic, it's just different," Yarrow states.
Granted, this can sound oddly similar to how young children play—next to each other rather than engaging with each other. But Yarrow's argument is evident: simply due to the fact that it's not your ideal idea of friendship doesn't imply it lacks significance. Maybe we should leave these men in peace with their trains, golf, or vintage auto projects—whichever pursuit allows them to enjoy time in the company of others who also value less chatter.
Past Verbal Expression: The Unspoken Language of Concern
Thankfully, Yarrow is explicitly not arguing that showing emotion is weak, nor advocating for a return to the past. Rather, he highlights that emotionally expressive talk is not for everyone, and that deeper things may be happening beneath the exterior of seemingly reserved friendships. Is he right?
As a woman's viewpoint, I'm obviously no expert on male-to-male conversation. But years of experience suggests that while men may be hesitant initially to discuss sensitive matters, once they do, they can be astonishingly forthright. A absence of visible emotion should not be confused with a absence of feeling entirely.
Furthermore, while younger men brought up in a more emotionally open culture may be better at articulating feelings, older men are not at all unable of it. Repackage vulnerable emotions as masculine "political opinions" or "team allegiance," and many men will happily vent frustration, yearning, discontent, or satisfaction for hours.
What is striking about Yarrow's railway volunteers is that, for all their horror of discussing feelings, they still found ways to communicate what seems remarkably like care and solidarity. When an older volunteer didn't appear and later returned clearly unwell, his friends observed and were worried. But, as the professor records, they deliberately didn't ask direct questions. Rather, they made tea, cracked jokes, and tried to be discreetly supportive while keeping routine. They were caring for each other pretty much as female friends would, except without ever verbally acknowledging the elephant in the room.
The Essential Issue: Is Connection Need Words?
This is not the ideal way of bonding, and it may not be yours. But if the real beneficial value of friendship—the thing that combats loneliness and despair—is fundamentally the awareness that someone is there enough to walk through life's challenges with you, does that invariably be put into words?
The debate continues. Maybe the healthiest approach is to acknowledge that varied forms of friendship hold equal worth, each satisfying the psychological needs of different individuals in unique effective way.
