Masculine Friendships Develop Differently, Women's Relationships Another. Should We Cease Attempting to Turn Men Into Women?
It's healthy to talk. Or so men are repeatedly told, from sources ranging from mental health campaigners to the partners they live with. These women are perplexed by the typical male habit 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 could they possibly be doing, all that time? How come they didn't they asked how X is handling his breakup, or how Y is managing the loss of his father?
For women, whose personal friendships typically center on an intimate and detailed understanding of each other's innermost feelings, this form of male intimacy—built on apparently avoiding serious conversation—can appear oddly hollow and sad. It's no surprise, one might think, that more than 25% of UK men state having no close friends; that male loneliness is pervasive; that many hesitate to visit a doctor until in dire straits; that male suicide rates consistently exceed female ones; and that countless middle-aged men, especially, seem chronically angry for unarticulated reasons. Bottling everything up helps no one.
Rethinking the Value of Silent Friendship
However, as per researcher Thomas Yarrow, this perspective may undervalue the merits of the resilient and quiet friendship. Professor Yarrow, from Durham University, was studying volunteers at a heritage steam railway in northern England when he was struck by the closeness forged among these predominantly older men. His four-year 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 hobbies—"doing things together, often in companionable silence"—may be underrated.
This quiet model of friendship "is not deficient or anachronistic, it's just different," Yarrow suggests.
Admittedly, this can sound oddly similar to how young children play—alongside each other rather than directly with each other. But Yarrow's argument is evident: just because it's not your ideal version of friendship doesn't mean it lacks value. Perhaps we should let these men in peace with their trains, golf, or vintage auto projects—whatever pursuit allows them to spend time in the company of others who also value less talk.
Past Words: A Tacit Dialect of Concern
Thankfully, Yarrow is explicitly not claiming that expressing emotion is weak, nor advocating for a reversion to the past. Instead, he makes the point that emotionally expressive talk isn't for everyone, and that deeper things may be occurring beneath the surface of seemingly reticent friendships. Is he right?
As a woman's viewpoint, I'm clearly no expert on male-to-male conversation. But years of observation suggests that while men may be hesitant at first to open up sensitive matters, once they do, they can be astonishingly candid. A lack of overt emotion should not be equated with a lack of feeling entirely.
Furthermore, while younger men brought up in a more expressive culture may be more adept at voicing feelings, traditional men are far from incapable of it. Rebrand soft emotions as acceptable "sports loyalty" or "club allegiance," and many men will readily vent anger, hope, discontent, or pride endlessly.
What is striking about Yarrow's railway enthusiasts is that, for all their horror of discussing feelings, they nonetheless managed to communicate what seems remarkably like concern and affection. When an older volunteer was absent and then returned clearly unwell, his friends observed and were concerned. However, as the professor records, they deliberately didn't ask direct questions. Instead, they offered tea, told jokes, and tried to be subtly supportive while maintaining normality. They were looking out for each other pretty much as female friends would, except without ever verbally acknowledging the obvious issue.
The Core Question: Is Connection Need Words?
This is not everyone's preferred method of connecting, and it may not be yours. But if the real therapeutic value of friendship—what that fights loneliness and despair—is simply the awareness that someone cares enough to be present in life's challenges with you, does that always be articulated with words?
This discussion continues. Perhaps the healthiest approach is to acknowledge that different forms of friendship hold equal worth, respectively satisfying the psychological needs of different individuals in their own effective way.
