Men and Their Friendship Challenges

(Susan Knight | SGP Health & Wellness Featured Columnist)

Written by Susan Knight for Sankarsingh-Gonsalves Productions.

Photo by Kato Blackmore 🇺🇦 on Unsplash

Do men, more so than women, struggle to build and maintain close friendships?   

Consider these headlines from Psychology Today:  Enduring Friendships: Why Are They So Hard for Males?and Why It's Hard for Many Men to Form Close Friendships.  Or this headline from the Washington Post: Like many men, I had few close friends. So I began a friendship quest. 

Are men unable to express their emotions; or out of touch with their emotions altogether, making it difficult for them to establish close, intimate connections with other men?  Personally, I’ve encountered quite a few men who were very open and communicative, in touch with their emotions and fully capable of articulating what was going on in their inner world.  I’ve observed several male friendships where a close bond and high degree of emotional intimacy were evident; and the men themselves confirmed these elements were present.   

But my perspective is biased, as most of the men I’ve gotten to know well over the years had a strong artistic bent of some sort.  They were often self-employed, doing art-related work that required self-awareness and self-expression.  Perhaps these artistic/creative types are unique in how they manage their friendships, partly because of their inherent temperament, and partly because they’re free from the constraints that come with holding a more traditional employment role.

My personal experience notwithstanding, I do believe there are men out there who struggle with building and maintaining close friendships.  There’s ample evidence indicating a sizeable number of men lack close connections where they can open up, be heard, and receive emotional support.  What I take exception to, however, is the framing of this as a male-specific issue. Browse through any women’s magazine or women’s lifestyle website and you’ll read numerous accounts of women struggling as well, either due to a lack of closeness in their friendships, or due to a lack of friendship altogether.  Clearly, men aren’t the only ones facing friendship challenges. 

In a 2019 YouGov survey of 1254 US adults, 23% of men and 19% of women said they had no close friends. While these survey results suggest women are more successful than men at establishing close friendships, it certainly isn’t by a staggeringly wide margin. The far more notable (and highly concerning) takeaway from these findings is that irrespective of gender, there are a surprisingly large number of people who lack even one close friendship.   

While there will always be exceptions, most would agree that in general, there do tend to be differences in how men and women develop and manage close friendships. Therefore, it makes sense to identify and address the gender-specific challenges most likely to arise.  It’s just as important, however, to keep the big picture in mind, which is that friendship challenges affect everyone; these challenges are not a uniquely male issue.  Why is this an important distinction? 

To find a suitable solution to any problem, an accurate diagnosis of the problem is required. If we incorrectly assume all women are thriving in their friendships, while all men are languishing in theirs, we might also incorrectly assume women are inherently better at developing and managing close friendships than men are.  This paves the way for faulty conclusions and misguided recommendations around what characteristics and behaviours men ought to adopt to improve their friendship dynamics, ultimately leaving the men who are struggling no better off.    

About the Author: Susan Knight| SGP Featured Writer | Contact the author: http://skfreelance.com

Susan is certified health and wellness coach with a focus on personal growth and inner wellness. She was a regular contributor to Social Work Today Magazine and is a featured Health & Wellness Columnist for SGP.