Men have fewer friends than ever. Be it in the US or the UK, male social circles have been shrinking. Millions of British men have no close friends at all. Three decades ago, more than 50% of American men claimed to have at least six close friends. Now that number has been halved
Any explanation of the modern decline in male friendships that points to historic "problems" with masculinity seems contradictory to me (such as what Vox alludes to).
It's a confusing issue and a sad one. I wonder if a lot of it is just that technology gives controlled simulacrums of adventure, sex and entertainment (on tap and on one's own terms) and men are satisfied enough with this in a given moment to not pass the activation activity required to take a stab at getting it in the real world. A chain of continually repeating short term decisions then results in a terrible long term outcome.
I'd put it more strongly than you - any explanation of the modern decline in male friendships that says men should be more like women is part of the problem. Like the execrable-sounding 'What About Men?' book that came out last year where it was clear the writer hated having to put that last letter into her title.
Kathleen Stock's review of it was good....as I wrote about here: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance ....including these observations..... "it would also be good if we could talk more about what is wonderful about masculinity, and toxic about femininity, without caveats or excuses. ......Perhaps tellingly, though, there’s little suggestion in [Caitlin Moran's] book that women could learn from men about being more loyal or crying less...... perhaps I am female-atypical, but — inviting as it sounds — I couldn’t live in Moran’s smoke-filled, gin-soaked world of warm hugs, tear-stained confidences and frank conversations about bodily fluids for more than 10 minutes at a time. Sometimes, talking about your feelings makes them worse and sometimes responding empathically to other people’s feelings only makes them more histrionic and attention-seeking. It can be very good to talk, but it can also be very good to shut the hell up and stamp off to dig the garden."
Tech is an issue but I also find the feminisation of the workplace is an issue too. My dad was a handyman, builder, postman, taxi driver, dockworker and factory worker. All his workplaces will have been all-male. He made friends in all of them. How many of us make friends in an office with its HR longhouse regimes and office politics? Being in an office job strikes me as a form of woke psychological torture now that I work remotely.
Lots of geek hobbies have become more popular thanks to the internet. These hobbies keep men isolated more than traditional blokey pastimes like going to the match.
There could also be an overemphasis on "friendships". Are we just overvaluing them now? How many friends did our great-grandfathers have?
Not that I would expect anyone to know the exact answer. The only thing I know about my great-grandfather was that he was in the Orange Order. Perhaps I should join it and make some friends.
I think an increased emphasis on friendship is a necessity of increased leisure time, though I also suspect - with no particular evidence - that there *was* more crossover between workmates and friends.
Again, perhaps this is my ignorance as an American, but over here, I doubt it. The fact is that community, as such, has gone to shit. Most white people here generally have no identity group that they can participate in and that draws from a portion of society.
Once church stopped being a thing, I think that the sort of default weekend friends one might have had evaporated. In addition, and I say this as a believer, the devout seem so focused on their family that they have no time for anything else. It is this sort of k-selection taken to ridiculous degrees, and also a generally sort of uxoriousness amongst men who are serious about their vows.
All of this is funny to me, because I am a highly disagreeable individual, but upon starting to read this, I realized I have a ton of friends who I see frequently. Experience says it is my ambivalence to rejection and willingness to shrug of flakiness. Despite never feeling particularly friendly, or religious, in the last twenty years the earth has moved so fast beneath my feet that I am on the extreme ends of both. Frankly, esp for all the NEETs out there, I do not know how they hold it together without friends. Lord have mercy on the men of the West!
You also need to bear in mind that the modern office can be quite a superficial and sterile environment. We see people day in day out (or not, if they aren't in every day) but don't really know them. Some people talk about home and what they did at the weekend, but we don't really know that much about them. If you're a moderately conservative male you generally keep your opinions to yourself. Sometimes, especially if you don't have a long commute, you may find a few like minded colleagues who will stop for a sneaky pint on the way home or chat when everyone else has gone home and you find more to talk about than you expected.
"You can lose contact with someone for so long because you have nothing special to talk about…" This is why I think the viral tweet was right. As a man, you don't meet people to talk so much as to do something—that can be playing golf, or watching football, or chasing women. And that's why I think male friendship has declined; this sort of thing has become lower status. Playing golf is not what it was. I remember a Jack of Kent tweet (may have been his real name account, anyway, I'm sure it was him) about wanting golf clubs to close permanently during lockdown, from which you could tell that lawyers have all become MAMILs rather than golfers (who are now more likely to be skilled workers, taxi drivers and the like, probably invaluable, but one wouldn't socialise with them, would one?). Football has become pricier, and pubs are exorbitantly priced and closing down, and cheap booze from supermarkets and the incentive to drink at home doesn't help. As for chasing women, heterosexuality is passé.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again. You know what? Society is to blame. There's this terrible idea educated people seem to have that people could talk more, or communicate by email or whatever. But most real life communication is non-verbal. The important thing is to do. There are fewer opportunities for men to do things together—people are more scattered across cities, and working hours can vary greatly, and this tends to fray friendship networks. Not everybody wants to be with only two or three acquaintances; maybe they don't particularly like each other. (Liking is an overrated factor in friendship, if you ask me.)
The two signal changes were lead time to do something - impromptness let's call it - and declining humor and curiosity. "Let's go to a movie" or "come.over and have a bite" are fiendishly difficult in SF, compared to decades past. Everyone seems programmed out two months. Likewise when running into people in public spaces, there's a palpable fear of appearing curious about someone, or making someone laugh for fear of being offensive. Fortunately I have no boundaries, little shame, high curiosity and am easily bored so it's easy to meet people and make friends. I watch heterosexual men in many social situations where they are so clearly bounded in what they can express they can appear mute. They need to stop worrying.
'Have men and boys become more liable to value toughness and stoicism over emotional sensitivity and connection?'
I'm not sure. But I think the long history of men being taught to be largely indifferent to themselves in certain ways ('big boys don't cry', 'spit on it and walk it off') contributes to an indifference toward other men.
The first thing, I think, that has to be admitted by everyone concerned about men's emotional lives is that *men actually have emotional lives*. Sadly, much of that emotional life is subsumed under a blanket of rage and shame. Rage at being forced to not be human in some ways. Shame that we cannot be less human than we already are.
In my life, I've been comforted (without realizing that was what was going on) by the sense that I *could* call on a friend for help. And that, perversely, made it less likely that I would call on them.
'One viral tweet from 2023 described the “ultimate male friendship” as being one in which you play a lot of golf and never talk.'
I know exactly what this person is talking about. A *shared* silence is, perhaps, something our confessional culture does not understand, but its a real thing. The (somewhat) female model of verbal 'sharing' isn't the only viable model. The two guys going for a day of shared silent golf are not only expressing their solidarity with one another, they are doing so in a way that is distinctly male. The culture as a whole valorizes a version of 'sharing' that is rather more slanted toward one gender than another. Consequently, we do miss all the sharing that men do.
Lastly, the kind of masculine silent solidarity isn't really possible if women are around. And women, today, force themselves into every male space they can find.
Masculinity hasn't collapsed.
It been systematically demolished by forced gender-mixing.
Both my ex and my sisters ex were addicted to online adult websites. I believe Adult Friend Finder is one of the biggest. It’s people posting naked pictures of themselves and getting compliments. I don’t even know if half the women on those sites are real!!! But these guys think some hot chick is about to invite them over and they spend Family Sunday on the couch with their phone and resent the hell out of you for interrupting them. I cruised that website and it is unbelievable the amount of people living in that reality. These guys end up with little to no friends and lose their families too.
Any explanation of the modern decline in male friendships that points to historic "problems" with masculinity seems contradictory to me (such as what Vox alludes to).
It's a confusing issue and a sad one. I wonder if a lot of it is just that technology gives controlled simulacrums of adventure, sex and entertainment (on tap and on one's own terms) and men are satisfied enough with this in a given moment to not pass the activation activity required to take a stab at getting it in the real world. A chain of continually repeating short term decisions then results in a terrible long term outcome.
I'd put it more strongly than you - any explanation of the modern decline in male friendships that says men should be more like women is part of the problem. Like the execrable-sounding 'What About Men?' book that came out last year where it was clear the writer hated having to put that last letter into her title.
Hah!
Kathleen Stock's review of it was good....as I wrote about here: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/shall-we-dance ....including these observations..... "it would also be good if we could talk more about what is wonderful about masculinity, and toxic about femininity, without caveats or excuses. ......Perhaps tellingly, though, there’s little suggestion in [Caitlin Moran's] book that women could learn from men about being more loyal or crying less...... perhaps I am female-atypical, but — inviting as it sounds — I couldn’t live in Moran’s smoke-filled, gin-soaked world of warm hugs, tear-stained confidences and frank conversations about bodily fluids for more than 10 minutes at a time. Sometimes, talking about your feelings makes them worse and sometimes responding empathically to other people’s feelings only makes them more histrionic and attention-seeking. It can be very good to talk, but it can also be very good to shut the hell up and stamp off to dig the garden."
"A chain of continually repeating short term decisions then results in a terrible long term outcome."
Well put.
Tech is an issue but I also find the feminisation of the workplace is an issue too. My dad was a handyman, builder, postman, taxi driver, dockworker and factory worker. All his workplaces will have been all-male. He made friends in all of them. How many of us make friends in an office with its HR longhouse regimes and office politics? Being in an office job strikes me as a form of woke psychological torture now that I work remotely.
Lots of geek hobbies have become more popular thanks to the internet. These hobbies keep men isolated more than traditional blokey pastimes like going to the match.
There could also be an overemphasis on "friendships". Are we just overvaluing them now? How many friends did our great-grandfathers have?
Not that I would expect anyone to know the exact answer. The only thing I know about my great-grandfather was that he was in the Orange Order. Perhaps I should join it and make some friends.
I think an increased emphasis on friendship is a necessity of increased leisure time, though I also suspect - with no particular evidence - that there *was* more crossover between workmates and friends.
Again, perhaps this is my ignorance as an American, but over here, I doubt it. The fact is that community, as such, has gone to shit. Most white people here generally have no identity group that they can participate in and that draws from a portion of society.
Once church stopped being a thing, I think that the sort of default weekend friends one might have had evaporated. In addition, and I say this as a believer, the devout seem so focused on their family that they have no time for anything else. It is this sort of k-selection taken to ridiculous degrees, and also a generally sort of uxoriousness amongst men who are serious about their vows.
All of this is funny to me, because I am a highly disagreeable individual, but upon starting to read this, I realized I have a ton of friends who I see frequently. Experience says it is my ambivalence to rejection and willingness to shrug of flakiness. Despite never feeling particularly friendly, or religious, in the last twenty years the earth has moved so fast beneath my feet that I am on the extreme ends of both. Frankly, esp for all the NEETs out there, I do not know how they hold it together without friends. Lord have mercy on the men of the West!
You also need to bear in mind that the modern office can be quite a superficial and sterile environment. We see people day in day out (or not, if they aren't in every day) but don't really know them. Some people talk about home and what they did at the weekend, but we don't really know that much about them. If you're a moderately conservative male you generally keep your opinions to yourself. Sometimes, especially if you don't have a long commute, you may find a few like minded colleagues who will stop for a sneaky pint on the way home or chat when everyone else has gone home and you find more to talk about than you expected.
Question, but does anyone actually hold to John Knox and the like on that side of the pond, or is it just a sort of synthetic fraternity?
I believe it's more political than religious at this point
Stoicism is not the answer, more part of the problem, withdrawal from society, the community.
Thus it was a later Empire thing, when Rome starting to fray.
"You can lose contact with someone for so long because you have nothing special to talk about…" This is why I think the viral tweet was right. As a man, you don't meet people to talk so much as to do something—that can be playing golf, or watching football, or chasing women. And that's why I think male friendship has declined; this sort of thing has become lower status. Playing golf is not what it was. I remember a Jack of Kent tweet (may have been his real name account, anyway, I'm sure it was him) about wanting golf clubs to close permanently during lockdown, from which you could tell that lawyers have all become MAMILs rather than golfers (who are now more likely to be skilled workers, taxi drivers and the like, probably invaluable, but one wouldn't socialise with them, would one?). Football has become pricier, and pubs are exorbitantly priced and closing down, and cheap booze from supermarkets and the incentive to drink at home doesn't help. As for chasing women, heterosexuality is passé.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again. You know what? Society is to blame. There's this terrible idea educated people seem to have that people could talk more, or communicate by email or whatever. But most real life communication is non-verbal. The important thing is to do. There are fewer opportunities for men to do things together—people are more scattered across cities, and working hours can vary greatly, and this tends to fray friendship networks. Not everybody wants to be with only two or three acquaintances; maybe they don't particularly like each other. (Liking is an overrated factor in friendship, if you ask me.)
Fair point!
The two signal changes were lead time to do something - impromptness let's call it - and declining humor and curiosity. "Let's go to a movie" or "come.over and have a bite" are fiendishly difficult in SF, compared to decades past. Everyone seems programmed out two months. Likewise when running into people in public spaces, there's a palpable fear of appearing curious about someone, or making someone laugh for fear of being offensive. Fortunately I have no boundaries, little shame, high curiosity and am easily bored so it's easy to meet people and make friends. I watch heterosexual men in many social situations where they are so clearly bounded in what they can express they can appear mute. They need to stop worrying.
'Have men and boys become more liable to value toughness and stoicism over emotional sensitivity and connection?'
I'm not sure. But I think the long history of men being taught to be largely indifferent to themselves in certain ways ('big boys don't cry', 'spit on it and walk it off') contributes to an indifference toward other men.
The first thing, I think, that has to be admitted by everyone concerned about men's emotional lives is that *men actually have emotional lives*. Sadly, much of that emotional life is subsumed under a blanket of rage and shame. Rage at being forced to not be human in some ways. Shame that we cannot be less human than we already are.
In my life, I've been comforted (without realizing that was what was going on) by the sense that I *could* call on a friend for help. And that, perversely, made it less likely that I would call on them.
'One viral tweet from 2023 described the “ultimate male friendship” as being one in which you play a lot of golf and never talk.'
I know exactly what this person is talking about. A *shared* silence is, perhaps, something our confessional culture does not understand, but its a real thing. The (somewhat) female model of verbal 'sharing' isn't the only viable model. The two guys going for a day of shared silent golf are not only expressing their solidarity with one another, they are doing so in a way that is distinctly male. The culture as a whole valorizes a version of 'sharing' that is rather more slanted toward one gender than another. Consequently, we do miss all the sharing that men do.
Lastly, the kind of masculine silent solidarity isn't really possible if women are around. And women, today, force themselves into every male space they can find.
Masculinity hasn't collapsed.
It been systematically demolished by forced gender-mixing.
Perhaps we should reconsider Robert Bly's message.
Both my ex and my sisters ex were addicted to online adult websites. I believe Adult Friend Finder is one of the biggest. It’s people posting naked pictures of themselves and getting compliments. I don’t even know if half the women on those sites are real!!! But these guys think some hot chick is about to invite them over and they spend Family Sunday on the couch with their phone and resent the hell out of you for interrupting them. I cruised that website and it is unbelievable the amount of people living in that reality. These guys end up with little to no friends and lose their families too.
Urgh, very grim.