Male Bonds Develop One Way, Female Friendships Other. Ought We Halt Efforts to Turn Men More Like Women?
It's beneficial to talk. Or so men are repeatedly told, by everyone from mental health advocates to the partners they live with. These women are bemused by the typical male tendency to pass an entire evening in the pub with longstanding friends, yet come home with no insight about the significant events in each other's lives. What might they possibly be doing, all that time? How come they didn't they inquired how X is handling his breakup, or how Y is dealing with the loss of his father?
For women, whose personal friendships often center on an intimate and detailed understanding of each other's private feelings, this style of male intimacy—based on apparently sidestepping serious conversation—can seem strangely hollow and unfulfilling. It's no surprise, we think, that over a quarter of British men report having zero close friends; that male loneliness is widespread; that many refuse to visit a doctor unless seriously ill; that male suicide rates consistently outstrip female ones; and that countless middle-aged men, especially, seem chronically angry for unarticulated reasons. Bottling emotions up benefits nobody.
Reconsidering the Merit of Quiet Friendship
Yet, as per anthropologist Thomas Yarrow, this view may sell short the strengths of the resilient and quiet friendship. Professor Yarrow, from Durham University, was studying volunteers at a historic steam railway in northern England when he was struck by the bond forged among these predominantly older men. His four-year study has been distilled into a paper contending that, particularly for men raised in an era of the stiff upper lip, the value of friendships built around shared activities—"doing things together, often in companionable silence"—may be underappreciated.
This muted model of friendship "is not deficient or outdated, it's just different," Yarrow states.
Granted, this can sound disconcertingly similar to how toddlers interact—next to each other rather than engaging with each other. But Yarrow's point is clear: just because it's not your ideal version of friendship doesn't imply it lacks value. Perhaps we should let these men in peace with their trains, golf, or vintage auto projects—whichever activity allows them to enjoy time in the company of others who also appreciate less chatter.
Past Words: A Tacit Dialect of Care
Fortunately, Yarrow is explicitly not claiming that expressing emotion is harmful, nor advocating for a return to the past. Rather, he makes the point that touchy-feely talk isn't for everyone, and that deeper things may be occurring beneath the exterior of seemingly reticent friendships. Is he right?
As a woman's viewpoint, one is obviously no expert on male-to-male conversation. But years of experience suggests that while men may be hesitant at first to open up sensitive matters, once they begin, they can be astonishingly forthright. A lack of overt emotion should not be confused with a absence of feeling entirely.
Furthermore, while modern men brought up in a more expressive culture may be better at articulating feelings, traditional men are not at all unable of it. Repackage soft emotions as acceptable "sports loyalty" or "club allegiance," and many men will happily vent frustration, hope, discontent, or satisfaction endlessly.
What is striking about Yarrow's railway enthusiasts is that, for all their aversion of discussing feelings, they nonetheless found ways to communicate what looks remarkably like care and affection. When an older volunteer didn't appear and later returned clearly unwell, his friends observed and were worried. But, as the professor notes, they intentionally didn't probe what was wrong. Rather, they offered tea, cracked jokes, and tried to be subtly supportive while keeping normality. They were looking out for each other pretty much as female friends would, but without ever verbally acknowledging the elephant in the room.
The Essential Question: Is Connection Require Words?
This is not everyone's ideal method of connecting, and it may not be yours. But if the real therapeutic value of friendship—the thing that fights loneliness and low mood—is simply the awareness that another person is there enough to be present in life's difficulties with you, must that invariably be put into words?
This discussion persists. Maybe the most constructive approach is to acknowledge that varied forms of friendship hold comparable worth, each meeting the psychological needs of different individuals in unique powerful way.
