The Vulnerability Problem

We tell men sometimes to "be more vulnerable," but that actually repels more male friends than it would ever attract.

The New York Times did a piece yesterday on “why it’s so hard for men to make friends,” which has become a pretty big canon of discussion since about 2015. I myself have covered off on this about 237 times, notably in these three deeper dives:

• Masculinity

• Friendship

• Loneliness and isolation

Now, all the same stuff happens in all these articles. We talk about men not caring about others (not true), we talk about men making friends side-by-side (true), we talk about conventional male definitions of success (but not in the right ways), we act reductionist in comparing men to women (accomplishes little), and then we give a few generic pieces of advice (the bow).

Now, this part, which I screenshotted from NYT, is true: