Male Friendships Evolve One Way, Female Friendships Other. Is It Time to Cease Attempting to Push Men Into Women?
It is healthy to talk. Or so men are repeatedly told, from sources ranging from mental health campaigners to the women they live with. They remain bemused by the common male propensity to spend 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 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 own friendships typically center on an deep and encyclopaedic knowledge of each other's private feelings, this style of male intimacy—built on apparently avoiding serious conversation—can appear oddly hollow and sad. It's no surprise, we think, that more than 25% of British men report having no close friends; that male loneliness is pervasive; that many refuse to see a doctor until in dire straits; that male suicide rates consistently outstrip female ones; and that many middle-aged men, especially, appear chronically angry for unarticulated reasons. Suppressing everything up helps no one.
Rethinking the Value of Quiet Friendship
However, according to researcher Thomas Yarrow, this perspective may undervalue the strengths of the strong and quiet friendship. Professor Yarrow, from Durham University, was studying volunteers at a heritage steam railway in northern England when he was impressed with the bond developed among these predominantly older men. His lengthy observation has been published as a paper contending that, particularly for men raised in an era of the stiff upper lip, the worth of friendships centered on shared activities—"shared activity, often in comfortable silence"—may be underappreciated.
This quiet form of friendship "isn't bad or anachronistic, it's just different," Yarrow suggests.
Admittedly, this can sound disconcertingly similar to how toddlers interact—alongside each other rather than directly with each other. But Yarrow's point is clear: simply due to the fact that it's not your preferred 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—whatever pursuit allows them to spend time in the presence of others who likewise value less talk.
Beyond Words: A Tacit Language of Concern
Fortunately, Yarrow is explicitly not arguing that expressing emotion is harmful, nor advocating for a reversion to the past. Instead, he highlights that emotionally expressive talk isn't for everyone, and that more may be occurring beneath the surface of apparently reserved friendships. Could he be right?
As a woman's perspective, one is clearly no expert on male-to-male dialogue. But professional experience suggests that while men may be hesitant at first to discuss personal matters, once they do, they can be astonishingly candid. A absence of visible emotion should not be equated with a lack of feeling entirely.
Additionally, while modern men brought up in a more emotionally open culture may be more adept at voicing feelings, older men are not at all unable of it. Repackage soft emotions as masculine "political opinions" or "team allegiance," and many men will readily express anger, yearning, discontent, or pride for hours.
What is notable about Yarrow's railway volunteers is that, despite their aversion of discussing feelings, they nonetheless managed to communicate what looks remarkably like concern and solidarity. When an older volunteer didn't appear and later returned struggling, his friends noticed and were worried. However, as the professor notes, they deliberately didn't ask direct questions. Rather, they made tea, told jokes, and tried to be subtly supportive while keeping normality. They were looking out for each other pretty much as female friends would, except without ever naming the obvious issue.
The Core Question: Does Bonding Need Words?
It's not everyone's ideal way of connecting, and it may not be yours. But if the true therapeutic value of friendship—the thing that fights loneliness and low mood—is fundamentally the awareness that someone is there enough to walk through life's difficulties with you, does that invariably be articulated with words?
This discussion continues. Perhaps the healthiest approach is to recognize that different forms of friendship carry equal worth, each satisfying the psychological needs of different individuals in unique effective way.
