Male Friendships Develop One Way, Female Friendships Another. Should We Halt Efforts to Turn Men More Like Women?

It is good to talk. That's what men are often told, from sources ranging from mental health campaigners to the partners they live with. These women are bemused by the typical male tendency to spend an entire evening in the pub with longstanding friends, yet return utterly clueless 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 dealing with the loss of his father?

For women, whose own friendships typically revolve around an intimate and detailed knowledge of each other's innermost feelings, this style of male closeness—built on apparently sidestepping meaningful conversation—can appear strangely empty and sad. It's no surprise, one might think, that more than 25% of British men report having zero close friends; that male loneliness is pervasive; that many refuse to visit a doctor until seriously ill; that male suicide rates repeatedly outstrip female ones; and that countless middle-aged men, especially, seem permanently angry for unspoken reasons. Suppressing emotions up benefits nobody.

Reconsidering the Merit of Silent Companionship

Yet, according to anthropologist Thomas Yarrow, this perspective may sell short the merits of the resilient and quiet friendship. Professor Yarrow, based at Durham University, was researching volunteers at a historic steam railway in the north of England when he was struck by the closeness forged among these mostly older men. His lengthy observation has been published as a paper arguing that, especially for men raised in an era of the stiff upper lip, the value of friendships built around shared activities—"shared activity, often in comfortable silence"—may be underappreciated.

This muted form of friendship "isn't bad or outdated, it's just different," Yarrow suggests.

Granted, this can sound oddly similar to how young children interact—next to each other rather than directly with each other. But Yarrow's argument is clear: simply due to the fact that it's not your preferred idea of friendship doesn't imply it lacks value. Maybe we should leave these men in peace with their trains, golf, or classic car projects—whatever pursuit allows them to enjoy time in the company of others who also value less chatter.

Beyond Verbal Expression: The Unspoken Dialect of Care

Thankfully, Yarrow is explicitly not arguing that showing emotion is weak, nor calling for a return to the past. Rather, he highlights that emotionally expressive talk isn't for everyone, and that deeper things may be happening beneath the exterior of seemingly reserved friendships. Could he be right?

From a woman's perspective, one is obviously no expert on male-to-male dialogue. But professional experience indicates that while men may be hesitant initially to discuss sensitive matters, once they do, they can be astonishingly candid. A lack of overt emotion should not be equated with a lack of feeling altogether.

Additionally, while younger men raised in a more emotionally open culture may be better at articulating feelings, traditional men are far from incapable of it. Repackage soft emotions as masculine "political opinions" or "team allegiance," and many men will readily express anger, yearning, discontent, or pride for hours.

The most notable about Yarrow's railway volunteers is that, despite their horror of discussing feelings, they nonetheless found ways to communicate what seems remarkably like care and solidarity. When an older volunteer didn't appear and then returned struggling, his friends observed and were concerned. However, as the professor records, they intentionally didn't ask what was wrong. Instead, they made tea, told jokes, and tried to be discreetly supportive while keeping normality. They were looking out for each other pretty much as female friends would, except without ever verbally acknowledging the elephant in the room.

The Essential Question: Does Bonding Require Words?

This is not the preferred way of bonding, and it may not be yours. But if the real therapeutic value of friendship—the thing that combats loneliness and despair—is fundamentally the awareness that someone is there enough to be present in life's difficulties with you, must that invariably be put into words?

The debate persists. Maybe the most constructive approach is to acknowledge that different forms of friendship carry comparable worth, each meeting the emotional needs of different individuals in their own effective way.