What kind of friendships do you have?

29 comments

1. I have work colleagues and that’s about it. Any personal problems and you just push em down until the screaming in your head stops. Very healthy. 🤣

2. Men can be like that too but it requires a higher degree of intimacy compared to women.

3. the r/askmen sample might not be the most representative.

   I have some male friends, we go to concerts and movies and to the pub, and female friends to hang out and talk.

4. I got friends we share hobbies with, so we got more reasons to meet up and communicate. We share our worries and troubles every now and then, and know we can rely on each other if shit hits the fan.. but as long as things are okay we keep it chill and just have fun.

5. A small group of childhood friends. A small group of college friends. And a casual group of friends I see more regularly since we all live in the same area.

6. I have my wife, my family, and my friend group; each of them lend a different type of support.

   My wife is always my personal issues, my insecurities, or issues I’m running into with my family/friend/coworker relationships.

   Family is mostly favors, I need some help clearing brush, watching the dogs when we go out of town, etc.

   Friends are mostly venting about work, I don’t want a solution but everyone can understand a frustrating work situation.

7. I have my oldest guy friend who lives across the country. See him once a year or so but best pals and there for each other in a heartbeat.

   I have a local guy friend who comes in and out of my life now and then, mostly out these days. Not as much in common anymore but we’re there for each other.

   I have one FWB I’ve known for about five months. No romantic feelings there but she’s a lot of fun and I like hanging out with her.

   My closest friend is one with whom we’ve somewhat recently expressed our deeper romantic feelings for. We like the friendship just the way it is and don’t plan on changing but to allow our closeness to grow along with our friendship.

   And I have my girlfriend of five years who is my best friend ever and with whom I share everything. The latter two I mentioned are the ones I actively reach out to if problems are happening with me or them. The others I would respond to a request for help but don’t actively inquire.

   Obviously I’m ENM, so there are no secrets anywhere.

8. Unless I’ve got a problem that a friend could actually help with, mostly my attitude on that is that I’ll save it for my therapist.

9. If I feel like someone can help I’ll reach out to some of my friends, but personally I don’t get much benefit from talking about my issues

   And there are a few friends who reach out to me when they are in a crisis

   I have a couple group chats we use to stay in touch constantly

   The only thing I’m missing socially is a woman I can allow myself to be attracted to, everything else is covered

10. I think a better way to phrase this question for guys, “How many people in your life will help you bury a body?”

11. I have a close group of guys I’ve been friends with my whole life and we very rarely discuss problems in our lives. I go to my friends to forget about my problems, not to talk about them lol

12. i have a few childhood and college friends that i see from time to time, but most of my friends now are related to my hobbies

    the gender of my friends doesn’t really matter to me

13. I have no friends, I learned years ago that friends are like viruses, we have all had them at some point and if we let them they will kill us for their own gain.

14. I only really have the friendships where you go and have fun, but don’t really know about each others life. I recently learned that my closest friends grandma passed away last year.

    But that’s not something I see the need to change, I’ve never had problems so big in my life that I felt the need to reach out to my friends. And the only real problem I could see happening in the future is that I lose my job and can’t pay my bills after not getting a new job for a few months. I think it’s unrealistic to expect them to help me there, as it would be a huge financial burden.

15. If I have any issues, I try to resolve them in a healthy and responsible manner by bottling up and ignoring them. Has worked OK so far.

16. I have:

    * work friends with whom I’ll share amusing anecdotes and job related complaints

    * a best friend from college with whom I can share a lot of things including negative physical feelings (not emotional)

    * a wife of 13 years with whom I share most things (not deep or complex emotional feelings like fear, guilt, or grief,)

    * a bestest friend from grade school with whom I can share anything and everything.

17. I have had the same best friend since kindergarten and am 100% open with him about everything. If something really emotionally hard happens to me I’ll call him and my brother and usually, one of them will drop everything and be there for me within an hour. When I lived away from them I always had one other guy who could fill this role for me.

    I don’t hide things from my other male friends and will call them to talk about my struggles, but I wait to call them until after I’ve calmed down a bit and would never call them in tears.

18. I have 3 types of friendships

    1 Da Boyz. You know about 4-5 deep just shooting the shit with each other but not being emotional ever.

    2 the shit talking boyz. We are definitely friends. But 90 percent of our friendship is built on joking on each other

    3 the co worker turned friends

    4. The Lady friends. Like Da boyz. But all the emotional intelligence those clowns lack lol

19. I think men are generally more interested in solving our own problems, because we don’t want to be a burden on the other men and we pride ourselves in giving more value than we take. If a man is burdensome then he becomes less valuable to the tribe and therefore less socially viable as a mate, reducing his survival and reproduction chances.

    Women have evolved a literal need to seek connections when there is a problem because women can often get someone else to solve their problem for them (eg a man) and that maximizes their survival and reproduction odds in the wild.

    That being said, I feel like the guys I know all have no problem talking to each other and reaching out for help when they need to. I think this idea is more of a boomer thing that came from their parents needing to survive the great depression and industrialization with a total lack of labor rights and passing that on.

20. Guys do tend to have a poor social circle for support. Not all, but many do. Although, I do feel like men can make friends fairly easily but more effort could go into maintaining those relationships.

    This is especially true for me. I have friends, and make friends easily, but I’m a rather solitary individual… and I often neglect relationship maintenance.

21. I tend not to vent to my male friends, we usually do things and leave the bullshit behind. If asked about something that happened we will speak of it but we tend to not bring issues to the activities. We do all sorts of things from hunting or shooting targets to barbecues, basketball or helping someone install cupboards or put up a garage

    They are important because they distract from anything negative that is happening and provide an enjoyable evening or weekend and then you can refocus from a different frame which is often all that is needed.

    My female friends I’m more likely to speak to about something that is bothering me when I can’t work through it and reframing my perspective isn’t working. They will usually seek me out and check in on me if I am ill or if something has happened to see if I am alright.

    My girlfriend is my confidant I share literally everything with her good and bad the only things I keep from her are surprises and things I don’t share with anyone, she knows broadly speaking what they are but knows that she shouldn’t ask about them.

22. I don’t have text book friends, I just know people and they know me. Anyone I consider a true friend are men who are old enough to be my father. I’m in my early 30s and they’re in their 50’s.

23. I have a couple of guys I’ve been friends with for over 30yrs and we do reach out to each other either when there is bad stuff going down with our families (SO with cancer has been an example) and for good things (birth of grandchildren).

    But I guess the first port of call for all of us is our wives. When you’ve seen each other at our best and their lowest you learn to lean on each other.

24. I have a handful of close friends I share things with. I lean on them when things are bad. Makes me sad to think this is so rare.

25. I think im way too comfortable with my friends and they are way too comfortable with me

26. I was popular when I was younger. But as I got older and cut partying out of my life, I chose to only keep the best friends as active participants in my life. I have about 8 really close friends (a mix of men and women) and we communicate daily. We all discuss our relationship highs and lows, employment successes and frustrations, mental and physical health concerns, and a lot of teasing, joking, etc. but those people and I have all been friends for 16-22 years (depending on the person).

27. I (m) really only have 3 friends, all women. One I’ve known since high school. The other two I met in college. The one from high school, I talk to the most, but all three of them pretty much something going on in their lives, while I’m still trying to find a reason to keep living. So, we don’t even see each other anymore. It’s been along time since I’ve hung out with any of them.

    In terms of the friendships that I wish I had, I’m not exactly sure. I guess I think of something like Maverick and Goose. Basically, someone to goof around with, but at the same time we can have those deep conversations. Plus, I’d have a wingman. But I could also be his.

28. Used to have

29. I’m the guy people go to for help with stuff. This remains true across all levels of closeness in friendship, topics just vary (e.g., from say schoolwork/research stuff, to family issues, to existential/identity crisis). Also true across genders. Usually people reach out to me but sometimes it’s a response to me asking a question from something I picked up from their behavior.

    Outside of that we usually just share memes, joke around, send cute dog videos (mostly with women lol), stuff like that.