I\u2019d be hard pressed to name a male friend of mine that I did not meet because of some sort of event. For most men, friendships are made when we\u2019re doing something. We tend to need that framework in order to build enough trust to actually open up and talk about what\u2019s on our minds. That\u2019s the reason most men get emotional when drunk or after some sort of victory.<\/p>\n
The thing is, it\u2019s not the actual activity that\u2019s the friend-making part. It\u2019s far more simple and sometimes harder than that.<\/p>\n
Why Most Friendship Advice Misses Men<\/p>\n
Most friendship<\/a> making and keeping advice are universal and genuinely useful. In 9 Proven Ways to Nurture Old and New Friendships<\/a>, Susan Newman Ph.D., gives some fantastic advice about reducing fear<\/a> of loss, providing safety, listening deeply, and prioritizing your friendships. <\/p>\n The gap that I see in all this advice, though, is in how friendships usually start between men. Everything that Dr. Newman mentions assumes that a certain level of trust and emotional availability already exists. For many men, trust and emotional availability come after an activity, since it’s easier to gauge someone\u2019s personality<\/a> when there is a low stakes activity involved. This is also one of the differences between how men and women make friends.<\/p>\n Side-by-Side vs. Face-to-Face<\/p>\n The core difference between most men and women when it comes to making and keeping friends is how they go about it. <\/p>\n In his book Buddy System: Understanding Male Friendships<\/a>, University of Maryland researcher Geoffrey Greif argues that male friendships tend to be “shoulder to shoulder” rather than “eye to eye” \u2014 men bond while doing something together, not by sitting across from each other and talking about their feelings. To be clear, it\u2019s not that men don\u2019t want to talk about their feelings \u2013 that\u2019s not the case at all. It\u2019s just not what men lead with.<\/p>\n NYU developmental psychologist Niobe Way spent decades interviewing boys about their friendships. Her research, detailed in Deep Secrets<\/a> and a recent Harvard EdCast interview<\/a>, found that boys start out craving close connection \u2014 and then cultural pressure teaches them to shut it down. The capacity for friendship doesn’t disappear. It gets suppressed and only finds its way back when it\u2019s among highly trusted friends or during times of rest.<\/p>\n It’s in times of rest surrounding activities, or the in-between, that idle chit chat transforms into real connections.<\/p>\n Why Men Need the In-Between<\/p>\n The in-between is the unstructured time that surrounds an activity. Things like the ride over, cleaning up after, breaks between innings, after the game beers, or driving the trash to the dump. It\u2019s these low-stakes, low-pressure, and agenda-free times that create the place where the real talk sneaks in. The main thing that makes the in-between so special is that you\u2019re not trying to connect \u2013 you\u2019re filling the silence with who you are. Those moments start to accumulate and before you know it, you start opening up because the comfort and trust has been built.<\/p>\n The one other thing about the in-between is that it\u2019s hard to replicate online. You need to be physically present and physically taking a break from an activity for the in-between to take place. Sure, online spaces can do some of that, but the In Real Life (IRL) aspect of it is critical, because it is when people are together that you can sense the level of comfort and anxiety<\/a> between you.<\/p>\n How Modern Life Killed the In-Between<\/p>\n Nowadays, we are obsessed with our smartphones and hardly a minute seems to go by that we\u2019re not scrolling to see what we missed. We\u2019re so trained in this that any kind of downtime or awkward silence is replaced with the single thumb doom scroll on social media<\/a>. That single habit has slowly killed the in-between.<\/p>\n So times like waiting before the game starts, cooling down after a workout, or even grabbing a drink after an event, have all been co-opted by the endless dopamine<\/a> rush of the latest cat video meme.<\/p>\n Another factor that also plays a role is our avoidance of the unproductive look of lingering, especially in the US. The smartphone nicely fills the \u201cunproductive\u201d gap and makes us look busy. It also contributes to loneliness<\/a>.<\/p>\n