Why Are Men Terrified Of Saying "I Love You" To Other Guys?
The decline of male-to-male intimacy and its repercussions.
Before you go crazy thinking I’m advocating for homosexuality, I’m not. I have no problem with any type of love, short of adult-to-child sexually (bad/felonious) and human-to-animal sexually (weird, felonious). Love whoever you want. If you read the Bible, or at the very least the New Testament portion, that appears to be the message. So love on whoever, but remember: Valentine’s Day isn’t just about spouses. It’s about kids, parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, dogs, cats, parakeets, and friends too. Love is all around us, no?
What gets lost in the shuffle is the male-male piece, because men aren’t supposed to do all that stuff, and the focus in most people’s eyes should be on the man doing something for the wife. I get it. And if the man is married, he should. But you can’t necessarily do something all day, and there might be some youth sports in there too, so you’ll have a few dead moments where you can text a little bit. And hey, the Super Bowl — the last norm-core unifying event we have as a society — was last night. Why not text a buddy about Aaron Donald? Why not text him about the ads? Why not text him about predictions for next year? Why not just reach out?
Break away from the work-family duality for a second.
So — aside from shooting a quick text or call to someone you haven’t been up with in a while, what else could you do? What could be thinking about in terms of guy-guy friend love?
The Big Buckets
I don’t want to start with all the science shit, like “side-by-side friendships,” because that’s generally true but often way over-discussed. I know many guys who are friends face-to-face, or in book clubs, or whatever. That’s academia trying to diagnose a problem with core concepts and terms that don’t always exist in the wild.
Here are the big buckets of male friendship acquisition, around post-30:
Work
Church
Gym, working out, or some type of intramural/rec sport
Bars
Your kids are friends with their kids
Your wife is friends with their wife (or partner/girlfriend)
Neighbors
You took them from another era (childhood, HS, etc.)
Generalized hobbies, i.e. woodworking, bowling, poker
Now, if you look at those bullets, it’s a decently long list — so all hope is not lost for men at all! I have a couple of solid friendships, and I know dudes that feel like they do as well. It’s hard, yes — more on that in a second — but it’s not impossible. And the good thing about this list above is that a lot of these concepts overlap, so you can meet a guy at work and go to a bar with him, or bring him into a workout class, or bring your neighbor to a poker night, or get your “Super Dad” lawn clean-up partner to bowl with you, etc. There are options.
So why does it feel like a crisis?
The core reason is the standard definition of masculinity, which now somehow has been co-opted as “under attack.” It’s not under attack so much as changing, and while I don’t necessarily want to see lots of high school boys wearing dresses at 14 either, maybe change isn’t such a bad thing.
Here’s a quick illustration. I went to a faith-based thing a few months ago, and it was all guys. The leader of the meeting said something like, if you left here and got hit by a bus, would you get into Heaven, provided you believe in Heaven? Most guys were rational and said “I’m not sure, but probably not.” A few guys, though — more than half — said yes, and when the speaker asked why, they all pointed to conventional notions of success. I have a big house. I’ve done well. I’ve achieved. I provide for my wife. I provide for my children. I’m a provider. One guy even named an expensive subdivision (Aledo) and said “I was able to buy a house there.”
This is how guys think about success, often, and more importantly this is how, often, society wants guys to think about success. In that ecosystem, male friendships drop way down the line. The top buckets become:
Find the right partner
Build the right career
{Impress your dad at all costs provided that relationship is good and he’s alive}
Have children
Live in the right area
Be fit {varies by guy, admittedly}
Be a virile provider
Shit, I need friends?
I went to another men’s group about six months ago and some dude legit started crying — very in-shape, three-kids-in-the-right-area guy — because he said he often goes eight months without talking to other guys aside from the gym sometimes.
So, largely this crisis is about what men feel like they need to do in order to be seen as successful, in the eyes of society, their partner, their dad, their mom, their kids, their co-workers, other men at bars, etc. The success definition makes the male friendship acquisition part harder.
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