I've known from experience for many years that my early male friendships trended toward a focus on a shared activity, rather than an interest in another person as such, but Schmidt presents a...
Male friendships are often rooted in “shoulder-to-shoulder” interactions, such as watching a football game or playing video games, while women’s interactions are more face-to-face, such as grabbing a coffee or getting together for a glass of wine.
I've known from experience for many years that my early male friendships trended toward a focus on a shared activity, rather than an interest in another person as such, but Schmidt presents a striking image here—I had never really thought about a physical framing of this concept, with men not even looking at each other during many of their interactions. Critical analyses of platonic male-on-male friendships rarely describe the significance of gaze on the relationships in question, focusing instead on the somewhat more abstract idea of what sort of content is likely to make up a given conversation. And although the end-goal of the men's liberation movement is, among other things, to give men a pathway toward opening up emotionally—and therefore widening the range of content that they would actually use in a conversation—doing so is challenging without a callback to the physical. This is not to say that men and abstraction are incompatible with one another, but the way that we (humans) perceive the world is informed to a great extent by visual phenomena, and our discourse is strengthened by a recognition of that reality.
You will often see the term "male gaze" used in feminist theory, especially in film. I feel that this is an interesting term because of the way it centers high-minded concepts about gender dynamics on something tangible; something that you can observe with your own two eyes in stereotypical male behavior, and can subsequently become aware of yourself. Similarly, a focus on what men actually see during their bonding time is one grounding element that we need to remain aware of as we analyze male friendships for their characteristic lack of intimacy. My experience is anecdotal, but something I have also noticed in the way that men (including myself) tend to physically speak to one another in social settings is with their sight lines situated at a 90° angle, turning their heads occasionally to look at the other person but otherwise staring off into the distance. When I first started experiencing strain in some of my early male friendships, I further remember noticing the difficulty that many of my friends had with maintaining eye contact for any length of time, even when doing an activity that placed us face-to-face—a habit out of place with their otherwise high levels of confidence (from this observation I exclude friends who are simply socially awkward) and, occasionally, their gaze in conversation with women. It would seem that for many men, the act of physically facing one another is unnatural or potentially uncomfortable specifically because both of the gender of those involved. I would posit that this derives in no small part from the perceived nature of such interactions by men as effeminate (and therefore undesirable)—how often does one stare deeply into another's eyes if not to precipitate romance?—but to an equivalent or greater extent it is probably a matter of conditioning, not so much an express desire to avoid eye contact. I would not suggest that the act of happening to stand at an angle from a person to whom you're speaking is necessarily problematic, but it nevertheless begs a number of questions about the interdependence between physicality and emotionality in social bonding situations when this behavior seems to occur consistently and on a societal level.
The pedantic among us oblige me to state that it is possible to have a very deep friendship that is largely or even primarily based around these so-called "shoulder-to-shoulder" activities. The best example of this I can think of is running for exercise, which I often do with a friend or two. Although we obviously keep our eyes forward on the path most of the time, any activity that involves conversation allows in theory for said conversation to be meaningful. Indeed, on many occasions I've had remarkably deep engagements while running with another person. Making a blanket statement that mutual gaze necessarily implies a deep personal discussion (and, conversely, that its absence necessarily implies a shallow one) would not be productive. The issue is not the act of standing shoulder-to-shoulder in and of itself, nor is it having a meta discussion on a given activity as it occurs. Rather, this physical tendency serves as an analogue for a trend in behavior that occurs in many male friendships. It is a bit of a "chicken or the egg" situation in long-term platonic relationships, but certainly there is a correlation between a lack of physical "intimacy" (to the extent that eye contact may be considered intimate) in a male friendships and a lack of emotional intimacy. I would argue that the original point of distance may stem from either condition, but I would also suggest that consistently and unknowingly lacking in one field almost inevitably compounds the distance present in the other. This pattern is nearly truistic when originating from the emotional (that emotional distance prompts physical distance, i.e. formal separation, is correctly ingrained within us), but in our discourse we rarely seem to think about it working in the opposite direction. I am hopeful that a greater level of attention on male friendships will prompt more nuanced discourse on the matter in the future.
I'm impressed that you can hold a conversation while running. I wouldn't be able to do that! For me, hiking seems like more of a social activity and that's because it includes stops.
I'm impressed that you can hold a conversation while running. I wouldn't be able to do that!
For me, hiking seems like more of a social activity and that's because it includes stops.
This topic has weighed on me heavily during the pandemic, as I moved to a new city where I know essentially no-one. This feels compounded, as I tend to be friends with my fiancee's friends. So...
This topic has weighed on me heavily during the pandemic, as I moved to a new city where I know essentially no-one. This feels compounded, as I tend to be friends with my fiancee's friends. So while she has a more robust digital support group, I don't feel that I have the direct and intimate access to these friends that she has. So, I find myself texting my male friends and awaiting a reply that never comes.
How are you fairing during the pandemic? Have you made new friends? Lost old friends? What is your strategy for making friends in a post-pandemic world?
I know how you feel, I've been there. PM me. I'm fortunate that I've got a pretty tight group of friends who are still close after over 20 years, in part due to a peristant group chat that's been...
I know how you feel, I've been there. PM me.
I'm fortunate that I've got a pretty tight group of friends who are still close after over 20 years, in part due to a peristant group chat that's been going since around 2004.
That said, the bond definitely weakened since we started getting married and having kids... the recurring video game nights dried up pretty quick.
Having a kid has kind of forced me out of my introvert shell, previously content with a handful of long-term, longish distance friends.
And unfortunately, just as I was starting to really get the hang of meeting 'parent friends', lockdown started and now every waking moment is a struggle to keep on top of a bored-to-hell and depressed young child and an ever more demanding remote workplace.
Post-pandemic I really want to get more involved with the local community...I never realized just how isolated we all were until I started seeing all sorts of other families roaming the neighborhood we never saw before lockdown.
I saw this, too! It was really interesting, because I would often see mothers out walking around with their children before the pandemic started, but suddenly fathers were there, too! I wouldn't...
I never realized just how isolated we all were until I started seeing all sorts of other families roaming the neighborhood we never saw before lockdown.
I saw this, too! It was really interesting, because I would often see mothers out walking around with their children before the pandemic started, but suddenly fathers were there, too! I wouldn't see them walking with their kids on the weekend previously, so this was entirely new. It's too bad we all have to social distance or I could have gotten to know some of them a little better.
This has been really weird for me. I was in the middle of a move and got stuck in another country, so I didn't get to finish the move. I feel like I'm in sort of a limbo, as the people I do know...
This has been really weird for me. I was in the middle of a move and got stuck in another country, so I didn't get to finish the move. I feel like I'm in sort of a limbo, as the people I do know in this area aren't really taking precautions (going to bars still, travelling).
Thus, I've become a big hermit over the past 5 months or so, my only real contact through a couple people on the phone. I noticed it's been really bad for my mental health, making it easier to get aggravated at the slightest things. Without even else to commit to social events, my work and "rest" bleed together such that I don't really feel productive or rested most of the time.
Not really sure what to do given that I don't really know how to find people who are taking precautions, and I don't feel comfortable "judging" people on it. Maybe it's just the fear of confronting people by asking really deep questions on this? I echo @vord's thoughts on getting more involved with the local community. I also want to find somewhere I'm comfortable to call home, and grow some deeper roots within.
Huh. I'm glad this isn't a problem for me. I've tended to be pretty close with my male friends. I even moved in with one this year to make lockdown more tolerable. On top of that I have my friends...
Huh. I'm glad this isn't a problem for me. I've tended to be pretty close with my male friends. I even moved in with one this year to make lockdown more tolerable. On top of that I have my friends I've kept since high school. We're playing DnD and a game of Diplomacy online (with 1 round per 24 hours).
I sympathize with anyone who is going through this right now, and if you want to chat, feel free to DM me. I've moved states several times over the last few decades, and have had to find new...
I sympathize with anyone who is going through this right now, and if you want to chat, feel free to DM me. I've moved states several times over the last few decades, and have had to find new friendships several times. At some point I ran across one or more articles talking about the topic of male friendships (like this one does) and pointing out that they commonly lack "depth". I recognized that all of my male friendships where pretty superficial. It took a lot of very deliberate effort, some awkward starts, but I've never regretted starting a "deeper" conversation with a friend I trust. Some of them I still have and some have drifted away, but none have played out the way the Voice of Anxiety said they would "whoa, get away from me with that".
I miss hanging out with those close friends, though we still txt and play games over Discord. Never the same though, but at least it's something.
The best way I've found so far to start a deeper male relationship is to mention articles like this, in the same way you'd mention anything else. "Hey I read an article I found interesting yesterday....". Depending on their reaction, it's pretty easy to pivot it into a deliberate 1:1 lunch or drinks after work.
Yeah, I identify with this phenomenon. I had a friend group in high school, but that's gone now. I made a few friends in college, and we talk when I go to their weddings, and I usually send them...
Yeah, I identify with this phenomenon. I had a friend group in high school, but that's gone now. I made a few friends in college, and we talk when I go to their weddings, and I usually send them birthday wishes and the occasional check-up text. I get the feeling that they don't have time to talk to me these days. After college, most of my male relationships were as shallow as this article described. We worked together, did outdoorsy stuff together, played games together, but it never really got deep. I text them occasionally to check up and wish them happy birthday, but it feels like they also don't have time to talk.
I do have a couple of deeper male relationships, and I'm happy I found them, but it feels like I'm always the one reaching out. Maybe everyone's just super busy, but it feels like very few people outside of my family care about me as much as I do about them. I'll keep trying though. Maybe not being on social media plays a factor, but I don't see that as a way to form deep connections.
Since I work for myself, I moved in with my parents in July 2019 to take care of them through some surgeries, and then quarantine started. I've been away from social life for about a year and a half now. I'm optimistic that when quarantine ends, I'll be able to get back out there and meet people in person. But I'm basically starting over from square one...again.
I get this. It's really difficult to silence that voice, the one that tells me "stop doing that, they'll think you're needy". As a guy, I feel deeply compelled to always being the one doing the...
Maybe everyone's just super busy, but it feels like very few people outside of my family care about me as much as I do about them. I'll keep trying though. Maybe not being on social media plays a factor, but I don't see that as a way to form deep connections.
I get this. It's really difficult to silence that voice, the one that tells me "stop doing that, they'll think you're needy". As a guy, I feel deeply compelled to always being the one doing the helping. To be strong mentally and physically, which directly translates into not asking for help, but always being willing to help. It's frightening how deeply ingrained it is.
It's one of the things I've worked on with a therapist, and it's helped. My wife has been incredibly supportive of that journey though. Every time I reach out and tell her "I feel ___ right now, and I need help either dealing with it or fixing it" (even if I don't know how she can help me) I have not regretted it. Even knowing that, it's still hard. Doing that same thing with a male friend is something I have done very very rarely, but hope to do more of (gradually).
And to be clear, the reaching out for emotional support is less about how to do it, but about when. It's about taking that stereotype of the stoic male that's in my head, the one that only reaches out for emotional support when it's really necessary (like, someone-has-died levels) and moving the threshold waaaaay down. Changing the threshold to somewhere near the "a random cashier said something to me today that upset me, and I don't really know why, can I talk to you about it?" level.
Also, on the social media point, my wife and I both deleted Facebook ~3yrs ago after the Cambridge Analytica thing, which had a large impact on how we interact with people. We knew it would, and tried to make very deliberate choices about who to stay in contact with, and how. The number of people I interact with in the average week is a lot smaller, however each of those interactions is far more deliberate and meaningful.
All that said, that reminds me, there are some friends I need to be deliberate about and go schedule a 1:1 zoom lunch "date" with today before I procrastinate again.....
I’ve pretty much lost all my friends and it’s just me, my fiancée, and our cat. I don’t feel lonely, people are complex and it’s a lot of work to maintain relationships. I’m taking the path of...
I’ve pretty much lost all my friends and it’s just me, my fiancée, and our cat. I don’t feel lonely, people are complex and it’s a lot of work to maintain relationships. I’m taking the path of least resistance, my relationships with the cat and my girl are easy and fulfilling. I don’t feel like I’m missing much.
I've known from experience for many years that my early male friendships trended toward a focus on a shared activity, rather than an interest in another person as such, but Schmidt presents a striking image here—I had never really thought about a physical framing of this concept, with men not even looking at each other during many of their interactions. Critical analyses of platonic male-on-male friendships rarely describe the significance of gaze on the relationships in question, focusing instead on the somewhat more abstract idea of what sort of content is likely to make up a given conversation. And although the end-goal of the men's liberation movement is, among other things, to give men a pathway toward opening up emotionally—and therefore widening the range of content that they would actually use in a conversation—doing so is challenging without a callback to the physical. This is not to say that men and abstraction are incompatible with one another, but the way that we (humans) perceive the world is informed to a great extent by visual phenomena, and our discourse is strengthened by a recognition of that reality.
You will often see the term "male gaze" used in feminist theory, especially in film. I feel that this is an interesting term because of the way it centers high-minded concepts about gender dynamics on something tangible; something that you can observe with your own two eyes in stereotypical male behavior, and can subsequently become aware of yourself. Similarly, a focus on what men actually see during their bonding time is one grounding element that we need to remain aware of as we analyze male friendships for their characteristic lack of intimacy. My experience is anecdotal, but something I have also noticed in the way that men (including myself) tend to physically speak to one another in social settings is with their sight lines situated at a 90° angle, turning their heads occasionally to look at the other person but otherwise staring off into the distance. When I first started experiencing strain in some of my early male friendships, I further remember noticing the difficulty that many of my friends had with maintaining eye contact for any length of time, even when doing an activity that placed us face-to-face—a habit out of place with their otherwise high levels of confidence (from this observation I exclude friends who are simply socially awkward) and, occasionally, their gaze in conversation with women. It would seem that for many men, the act of physically facing one another is unnatural or potentially uncomfortable specifically because both of the gender of those involved. I would posit that this derives in no small part from the perceived nature of such interactions by men as effeminate (and therefore undesirable)—how often does one stare deeply into another's eyes if not to precipitate romance?—but to an equivalent or greater extent it is probably a matter of conditioning, not so much an express desire to avoid eye contact. I would not suggest that the act of happening to stand at an angle from a person to whom you're speaking is necessarily problematic, but it nevertheless begs a number of questions about the interdependence between physicality and emotionality in social bonding situations when this behavior seems to occur consistently and on a societal level.
The pedantic among us oblige me to state that it is possible to have a very deep friendship that is largely or even primarily based around these so-called "shoulder-to-shoulder" activities. The best example of this I can think of is running for exercise, which I often do with a friend or two. Although we obviously keep our eyes forward on the path most of the time, any activity that involves conversation allows in theory for said conversation to be meaningful. Indeed, on many occasions I've had remarkably deep engagements while running with another person. Making a blanket statement that mutual gaze necessarily implies a deep personal discussion (and, conversely, that its absence necessarily implies a shallow one) would not be productive. The issue is not the act of standing shoulder-to-shoulder in and of itself, nor is it having a meta discussion on a given activity as it occurs. Rather, this physical tendency serves as an analogue for a trend in behavior that occurs in many male friendships. It is a bit of a "chicken or the egg" situation in long-term platonic relationships, but certainly there is a correlation between a lack of physical "intimacy" (to the extent that eye contact may be considered intimate) in a male friendships and a lack of emotional intimacy. I would argue that the original point of distance may stem from either condition, but I would also suggest that consistently and unknowingly lacking in one field almost inevitably compounds the distance present in the other. This pattern is nearly truistic when originating from the emotional (that emotional distance prompts physical distance, i.e. formal separation, is correctly ingrained within us), but in our discourse we rarely seem to think about it working in the opposite direction. I am hopeful that a greater level of attention on male friendships will prompt more nuanced discourse on the matter in the future.
I'm impressed that you can hold a conversation while running. I wouldn't be able to do that!
For me, hiking seems like more of a social activity and that's because it includes stops.
This topic has weighed on me heavily during the pandemic, as I moved to a new city where I know essentially no-one. This feels compounded, as I tend to be friends with my fiancee's friends. So while she has a more robust digital support group, I don't feel that I have the direct and intimate access to these friends that she has. So, I find myself texting my male friends and awaiting a reply that never comes.
How are you fairing during the pandemic? Have you made new friends? Lost old friends? What is your strategy for making friends in a post-pandemic world?
I know how you feel, I've been there. PM me.
I'm fortunate that I've got a pretty tight group of friends who are still close after over 20 years, in part due to a peristant group chat that's been going since around 2004.
That said, the bond definitely weakened since we started getting married and having kids... the recurring video game nights dried up pretty quick.
Having a kid has kind of forced me out of my introvert shell, previously content with a handful of long-term, longish distance friends.
And unfortunately, just as I was starting to really get the hang of meeting 'parent friends', lockdown started and now every waking moment is a struggle to keep on top of a bored-to-hell and depressed young child and an ever more demanding remote workplace.
Post-pandemic I really want to get more involved with the local community...I never realized just how isolated we all were until I started seeing all sorts of other families roaming the neighborhood we never saw before lockdown.
I saw this, too! It was really interesting, because I would often see mothers out walking around with their children before the pandemic started, but suddenly fathers were there, too! I wouldn't see them walking with their kids on the weekend previously, so this was entirely new. It's too bad we all have to social distance or I could have gotten to know some of them a little better.
This has been really weird for me. I was in the middle of a move and got stuck in another country, so I didn't get to finish the move. I feel like I'm in sort of a limbo, as the people I do know in this area aren't really taking precautions (going to bars still, travelling).
Thus, I've become a big hermit over the past 5 months or so, my only real contact through a couple people on the phone. I noticed it's been really bad for my mental health, making it easier to get aggravated at the slightest things. Without even else to commit to social events, my work and "rest" bleed together such that I don't really feel productive or rested most of the time.
Not really sure what to do given that I don't really know how to find people who are taking precautions, and I don't feel comfortable "judging" people on it. Maybe it's just the fear of confronting people by asking really deep questions on this? I echo @vord's thoughts on getting more involved with the local community. I also want to find somewhere I'm comfortable to call home, and grow some deeper roots within.
Huh. I'm glad this isn't a problem for me. I've tended to be pretty close with my male friends. I even moved in with one this year to make lockdown more tolerable. On top of that I have my friends I've kept since high school. We're playing DnD and a game of Diplomacy online (with 1 round per 24 hours).
I sympathize with anyone who is going through this right now, and if you want to chat, feel free to DM me. I've moved states several times over the last few decades, and have had to find new friendships several times. At some point I ran across one or more articles talking about the topic of male friendships (like this one does) and pointing out that they commonly lack "depth". I recognized that all of my male friendships where pretty superficial. It took a lot of very deliberate effort, some awkward starts, but I've never regretted starting a "deeper" conversation with a friend I trust. Some of them I still have and some have drifted away, but none have played out the way the Voice of Anxiety said they would "whoa, get away from me with that".
I miss hanging out with those close friends, though we still txt and play games over Discord. Never the same though, but at least it's something.
The best way I've found so far to start a deeper male relationship is to mention articles like this, in the same way you'd mention anything else. "Hey I read an article I found interesting yesterday....". Depending on their reaction, it's pretty easy to pivot it into a deliberate 1:1 lunch or drinks after work.
Yeah, I identify with this phenomenon. I had a friend group in high school, but that's gone now. I made a few friends in college, and we talk when I go to their weddings, and I usually send them birthday wishes and the occasional check-up text. I get the feeling that they don't have time to talk to me these days. After college, most of my male relationships were as shallow as this article described. We worked together, did outdoorsy stuff together, played games together, but it never really got deep. I text them occasionally to check up and wish them happy birthday, but it feels like they also don't have time to talk.
I do have a couple of deeper male relationships, and I'm happy I found them, but it feels like I'm always the one reaching out. Maybe everyone's just super busy, but it feels like very few people outside of my family care about me as much as I do about them. I'll keep trying though. Maybe not being on social media plays a factor, but I don't see that as a way to form deep connections.
Since I work for myself, I moved in with my parents in July 2019 to take care of them through some surgeries, and then quarantine started. I've been away from social life for about a year and a half now. I'm optimistic that when quarantine ends, I'll be able to get back out there and meet people in person. But I'm basically starting over from square one...again.
I get this. It's really difficult to silence that voice, the one that tells me "stop doing that, they'll think you're needy". As a guy, I feel deeply compelled to always being the one doing the helping. To be strong mentally and physically, which directly translates into not asking for help, but always being willing to help. It's frightening how deeply ingrained it is.
It's one of the things I've worked on with a therapist, and it's helped. My wife has been incredibly supportive of that journey though. Every time I reach out and tell her "I feel ___ right now, and I need help either dealing with it or fixing it" (even if I don't know how she can help me) I have not regretted it. Even knowing that, it's still hard. Doing that same thing with a male friend is something I have done very very rarely, but hope to do more of (gradually).
And to be clear, the reaching out for emotional support is less about how to do it, but about when. It's about taking that stereotype of the stoic male that's in my head, the one that only reaches out for emotional support when it's really necessary (like, someone-has-died levels) and moving the threshold waaaaay down. Changing the threshold to somewhere near the "a random cashier said something to me today that upset me, and I don't really know why, can I talk to you about it?" level.
Also, on the social media point, my wife and I both deleted Facebook ~3yrs ago after the Cambridge Analytica thing, which had a large impact on how we interact with people. We knew it would, and tried to make very deliberate choices about who to stay in contact with, and how. The number of people I interact with in the average week is a lot smaller, however each of those interactions is far more deliberate and meaningful.
All that said, that reminds me, there are some friends I need to be deliberate about and go schedule a 1:1 zoom lunch "date" with today before I procrastinate again.....
I’ve pretty much lost all my friends and it’s just me, my fiancée, and our cat. I don’t feel lonely, people are complex and it’s a lot of work to maintain relationships. I’m taking the path of least resistance, my relationships with the cat and my girl are easy and fulfilling. I don’t feel like I’m missing much.