Masculine Friendships Form Differently, Women's Friendships Another. Is It Time to Cease Attempting to Make Men More Like Women?
It's beneficial to talk. That's what men are often told, by everyone from mental health campaigners to the partners they live with. These women are puzzled by the common male habit to spend an entire evening in the pub with decades-old friends, yet return with no insight about the personal struggles in each other's lives. What could they possibly be doing, all that time? Why haven't they asked how X is coping with his breakup, or how Y is managing the loss of his father?
For women, whose own friendships typically revolve around an intimate and encyclopaedic understanding of each other's private feelings, this style of male intimacy—built on apparently avoiding serious conversation—can look oddly hollow and sad. No wonder, we think, that over a quarter of UK men state having zero close friends; that male loneliness is endemic; that many hesitate to see a doctor until in dire straits; that male suicide rates consistently outstrip female ones; and that countless middle-aged men, in particular, seem chronically frustrated for unarticulated reasons. Suppressing emotions up benefits no one.
Rethinking the Value of Quiet Friendship
Yet, as per researcher Thomas Yarrow, this perspective may sell short the merits of the resilient and quiet friendship. Professor Yarrow, based at Durham University, was researching volunteers at a historic steam railway in northern England when he was impressed with the closeness forged among these predominantly older men. His four-year observation 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 companionable silence"—may be underrated.
This quiet model of friendship "is not deficient or outdated, it's just distinct," Yarrow states.
Admittedly, this can seem oddly similar to how toddlers play—next to each other rather than engaging with each other. But Yarrow's argument is evident: just because it's not your preferred version of friendship doesn't imply it lacks significance. Perhaps we should leave these men in peace with their trains, golf, or classic car projects—whichever pursuit allows them to spend time in the presence of others who also value less chatter.
Beyond Verbal Expression: The Unspoken Dialect of Care
Thankfully, Yarrow is explicitly not claiming that expressing emotion is harmful, nor calling for a return to the past. Instead, he highlights that emotionally expressive talk is not for everyone, and that more may be happening beneath the surface of apparently reserved friendships. Could he be right?
As a woman's perspective, I'm obviously no expert on male-to-male conversation. But professional experience indicates that while men may be hesitant at first to open up sensitive matters, once they do, they can be remarkably candid. A absence of overt emotion should not be equated with a lack of feeling entirely.
Additionally, while younger men raised in a more emotionally open culture may be better at articulating feelings, older men are not at all incapable of it. Rebrand vulnerable emotions as masculine "political opinions" or "club allegiance," and many men will happily express anger, hope, discontent, or satisfaction endlessly.
The most notable about Yarrow's railway volunteers is that, for all their horror of discussing feelings, they nonetheless managed to communicate what seems remarkably like care and solidarity. When an elderly volunteer didn't appear and then returned struggling, his friends observed and were worried. However, as the professor records, they deliberately didn't probe what was wrong. Rather, they made tea, cracked jokes, and tried to be subtly supportive while keeping routine. They were caring for each other much as female friends would, except without ever verbally acknowledging the obvious issue.
The Core Issue: Does Bonding Require Words?
This is not everyone's preferred method of connecting, and it may not be yours. But if the true beneficial value of friendship—the thing that fights loneliness and low mood—is simply the awareness that another person cares enough to be present in life's difficulties with you, must that always be articulated with words?
This discussion continues. Maybe the healthiest approach is to acknowledge that varied forms of friendship carry equal worth, respectively satisfying the psychological needs of different individuals in unique effective way.
