Male Friendships Form Differently, Women's Friendships Other. Is It Time to Cease Attempting to Push Men More Like Women?
It's healthy to talk. That's what men are often told, by everyone from mental health campaigners to the partners they live with. They remain bemused by the common male habit to spend an entire evening in the pub with longstanding friends, yet come home utterly clueless 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 managing the loss of his father?
For women, whose own friendships typically center on an intimate and encyclopaedic understanding of each other's private feelings, this form of male intimacy—based on apparently sidestepping meaningful conversation—can appear strangely hollow and unfulfilling. No wonder, one might think, that over a quarter of British men report having no close friends; that male loneliness is endemic; that many refuse to visit a doctor unless in dire straits; that male suicide rates repeatedly outstrip female ones; and that many middle-aged men, in particular, appear chronically angry for unarticulated reasons. Suppressing everything up benefits nobody.
Rethinking the Value of Silent Friendship
However, according to anthropologist Thomas Yarrow, this perspective may undervalue the strengths of the strong and quiet friendship. Professor Yarrow, based at Durham University, was researching volunteers at a heritage steam railway in northern England when he was struck by the closeness developed among these predominantly older men. His lengthy study has been published as a paper arguing that, particularly for men raised in an era of the emotional restraint, the worth of friendships centered on shared activities—"shared activity, often in comfortable silence"—may be underappreciated.
This muted model of friendship "is not deficient or anachronistic, it's just different," Yarrow suggests.
Granted, this can sound disconcertingly similar to how toddlers play—next to 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 version of friendship doesn't imply it lacks significance. Maybe we should leave these men in peace with their trains, golf, or classic car projects—whichever activity allows them to enjoy time in the presence of others who also appreciate less chatter.
Beyond Verbal Expression: The Unspoken Dialect of Care
Thankfully, Yarrow is explicitly not arguing that expressing emotion is harmful, nor calling for a reversion 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 surface of apparently reticent friendships. Could he be right?
From a female perspective, I'm obviously no expert on male-to-male conversation. But professional observation indicates that while men may be more reluctant at first to discuss personal matters, once they begin, they can be remarkably forthright. A absence of visible emotion should not be confused with a lack of feeling entirely.
Furthermore, while younger men raised in a more expressive culture may be better at voicing feelings, traditional men are far from unable of it. Rebrand soft emotions as acceptable "sports loyalty" or "club allegiance," and many men will readily vent anger, hope, discontent, or pride endlessly.
What is striking about Yarrow's railway volunteers is that, for all their horror of discussing feelings, they still found ways to communicate what seems remarkably like care and solidarity. When an older volunteer didn't appear and then returned struggling, his friends observed and were worried. But, as the professor records, they deliberately didn't probe direct questions. Rather, they offered tea, cracked jokes, and tried to be discreetly supportive while keeping normality. They were caring for each other pretty much as female friends would, except without ever naming the obvious issue.
The Core Issue: Is Connection Need Words?
This is not the preferred method of bonding, and it may not be yours. But if the real therapeutic value of friendship—the thing that fights loneliness and despair—is fundamentally knowing that another person cares enough to walk through life's difficulties with you, does that invariably be articulated with words?
This discussion persists. Maybe the healthiest approach is to acknowledge that varied forms of friendship carry comparable worth, each satisfying the psychological needs of different individuals in their own powerful way.
