Male Bonds Form Differently, Female Relationships Other. Is It Time to Stop Trying to Push Men Into Women?
It is healthy to talk. That's what men are constantly told, from sources ranging from mental health campaigners to the women they live with. These women are perplexed by the common male propensity to spend an entire evening in the pub with longstanding friends, yet come home with no insight 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 coping with his breakup, or how Y is managing the loss of his father?
For women, whose own friendships typically revolve around an deep and detailed knowledge of each other's innermost feelings, this form of male closeness—built on seemingly avoiding meaningful conversation—can appear strangely empty and unfulfilling. No wonder, one might think, that over a quarter of British men state having zero close friends; that male loneliness is pervasive; that many refuse to visit a doctor until seriously ill; that male suicide rates repeatedly exceed female ones; and that many middle-aged men, in particular, seem chronically angry for unarticulated reasons. Suppressing everything up benefits nobody.
Reconsidering the Merit of Quiet Friendship
However, as per researcher Thomas Yarrow, this view may sell short the strengths of the resilient and quiet friendship. Professor Yarrow, from Durham University, was studying volunteers at a historic steam railway in the north of England when he was struck by the closeness developed among these predominantly older men. His lengthy study has been distilled into a paper contending that, especially for men raised in an era of the stiff upper lip, the worth of friendships built around shared activities—"doing things together, 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 oddly similar to how toddlers play—next to each other rather than directly with each other. But Yarrow's point is clear: just because it's not your preferred idea of friendship doesn't mean it lacks value. Maybe we should leave these men in peace with their trains, golf, or vintage auto projects—whatever activity allows them to spend time in the presence of others who also appreciate less chatter.
Beyond Words: A Tacit Language of Care
Fortunately, Yarrow is explicitly not arguing that expressing emotion is harmful, nor calling for a return to the past. Rather, he makes the point that emotionally expressive talk is not for everyone, and that deeper things may be happening beneath the surface of seemingly reticent friendships. Is he 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 more reluctant initially to open up sensitive matters, once they begin, they can be astonishingly candid. A lack of overt emotion should not be equated with a absence of feeling altogether.
Furthermore, while modern men brought up in a more emotionally open culture may be better at voicing feelings, older men are far from incapable of it. Repackage soft emotions as acceptable "political opinions" or "team allegiance," and many men will happily vent frustration, yearning, discontent, or pride for hours.
The most notable about Yarrow's railway volunteers is that, despite their horror of discussing feelings, they nonetheless managed to express what seems remarkably like concern and solidarity. When an elderly volunteer was absent and then returned struggling, his friends observed and were worried. But, as the professor records, they intentionally didn't probe what was wrong. Instead, they made tea, told jokes, and tried to be subtly supportive while keeping normality. They were caring for each other pretty much as female friends would, except without ever naming the elephant in the room.
The Essential Question: Is Connection Need Words?
It's not the ideal method of bonding, and it may not be yours. But if the real therapeutic value of friendship—what that combats loneliness and despair—is fundamentally the awareness that another person cares enough to walk through life's difficulties with you, does that invariably be put into words?
This discussion persists. Maybe the most constructive approach is to recognize that varied forms of friendship hold equal worth, respectively meeting the emotional needs of different individuals in unique effective way.
