What do you think is the hardest part of friendship?
Or does gender have little to do with our ability to have meaningful friendships? American men appear to be stuck in a “friendship recession,” according to a recent survey. Less than half of men said they were truly satisfied with the number of friendships they had. The same study also found that men are less likely than women to seek emotional support from or share personal feelings with their friends. Do you think the survey would have similar findings if it centered on teenagers instead of adults? Why or why not? In your opinion, do women and girls have an easier time sharing their emotions with their friends or seeing their friends as helpers in hard times? Do you think they tend to want to have closer relationships than men and boys do? Think about your own experiences and the friendships you’ve observed — among people of all ages — and how gender might, or might not, shape those relationships.
In “Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?” Catherine Pearson writes:
The Tuesday before every Thanksgiving, Aaron Karo and Matt Ritter, both 43, go out to dinner with a group of seven men whom they befriended as second graders in Plainview, N.Y.
At the dinner, one of the friends wins the Man of the Year prize — a silly accolade the group concocted as an excuse to reconnect. They eat and they laugh, and the winner leaves with his name engraved on a cartoonishly large silver cup. “It’s not really about the trophy,” said Mr. Karo, who co-hosts a podcast with Mr. Ritter called “Man of the Year,” which explores adult friendship. “It’s about the traditions that keep us together.” The friends jockey for the prize in a running group text, where they share memes and talk a bit of trash but also keep up with one another. “I think men have been convinced that success in life does not necessarily include friendship — that if they’re successful at work or they’ve started a family, they’ve won,” Mr. Ritter said. “Our definition has always included having these thriving friendships.”
Mr. Ritter’s close crew notwithstanding, American men appear to be stuck in a “friendship recession” — a trend that predates the Covid-19 pandemic but that seems to have accelerated over the past several years as loneliness levels have crept up worldwide. In a 2021 survey of more than 2,000 adults in the United States, less than half of the men said they were truly satisfied with how many friends they had, while 15 percent said they had no close friends at all — a fivefold increase since 1990. That same survey found that men were less likely than women to rely on their friends for emotional support or to share their personal feelings with them.
“I think men have a deep craving for intimacy with their friends,” said Nick Fager, a licensed mental health counselor and the co-founder of Expansive Therapy, an L.G.B.T.Q.-focused psychotherapy group. “And yet getting there can feel so incredibly challenging.” Though the article centers on adult men, it contains advice about friendship that could apply to anyone:
Practice vulnerability, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Don’t assume friendship happens organically.
Use activities to your advantage. Harness the power of casual check-ins. My students, read the entire article, then tell us:
Did anything in the article remind you of the adults in your life? Did anything remind you of your own friendships? Please share.
Do any of the adults in your life have friendships you admire? What do you see in these friendships?
What is the most valuable piece of advice in the article? Are there any strategies that might be helpful with your own friendships? Is there any advice you would like to share with adults in your life? Why? What do you think is the hardest part of friendship? For example, is it putting yourself out there, keeping in touch, dealing with inevitable ups and downs or knowing when it’s time for friends to move on? What have you learned about handling these challenges? Nick Fager, a licensed mental health counselor, “believes the challenges some men face in developing meaningful, platonic bonds boil down to how they’ve been socialized to equate masculinity with strength, competitiveness and stoicism, even as traditional gender norms have shifted. Those qualities can make close friendship tricky.” What is your response to his analysis? Do you think gender norms, for better or for worse, shape friendships?
In “Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?” Catherine Pearson writes:
The Tuesday before every Thanksgiving, Aaron Karo and Matt Ritter, both 43, go out to dinner with a group of seven men whom they befriended as second graders in Plainview, N.Y.
At the dinner, one of the friends wins the Man of the Year prize — a silly accolade the group concocted as an excuse to reconnect. They eat and they laugh, and the winner leaves with his name engraved on a cartoonishly large silver cup. “It’s not really about the trophy,” said Mr. Karo, who co-hosts a podcast with Mr. Ritter called “Man of the Year,” which explores adult friendship. “It’s about the traditions that keep us together.” The friends jockey for the prize in a running group text, where they share memes and talk a bit of trash but also keep up with one another. “I think men have been convinced that success in life does not necessarily include friendship — that if they’re successful at work or they’ve started a family, they’ve won,” Mr. Ritter said. “Our definition has always included having these thriving friendships.”
Mr. Ritter’s close crew notwithstanding, American men appear to be stuck in a “friendship recession” — a trend that predates the Covid-19 pandemic but that seems to have accelerated over the past several years as loneliness levels have crept up worldwide. In a 2021 survey of more than 2,000 adults in the United States, less than half of the men said they were truly satisfied with how many friends they had, while 15 percent said they had no close friends at all — a fivefold increase since 1990. That same survey found that men were less likely than women to rely on their friends for emotional support or to share their personal feelings with them.
“I think men have a deep craving for intimacy with their friends,” said Nick Fager, a licensed mental health counselor and the co-founder of Expansive Therapy, an L.G.B.T.Q.-focused psychotherapy group. “And yet getting there can feel so incredibly challenging.” Though the article centers on adult men, it contains advice about friendship that could apply to anyone:
Practice vulnerability, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Don’t assume friendship happens organically.
Use activities to your advantage. Harness the power of casual check-ins. My students, read the entire article, then tell us:
Did anything in the article remind you of the adults in your life? Did anything remind you of your own friendships? Please share.
Do any of the adults in your life have friendships you admire? What do you see in these friendships?
What is the most valuable piece of advice in the article? Are there any strategies that might be helpful with your own friendships? Is there any advice you would like to share with adults in your life? Why? What do you think is the hardest part of friendship? For example, is it putting yourself out there, keeping in touch, dealing with inevitable ups and downs or knowing when it’s time for friends to move on? What have you learned about handling these challenges? Nick Fager, a licensed mental health counselor, “believes the challenges some men face in developing meaningful, platonic bonds boil down to how they’ve been socialized to equate masculinity with strength, competitiveness and stoicism, even as traditional gender norms have shifted. Those qualities can make close friendship tricky.” What is your response to his analysis? Do you think gender norms, for better or for worse, shape friendships?
