The Outsourcing Of Male Friendships

“Men have no friends, and women bear the burden” — but in a different form.

Years ago, when I was newly-divorced and had just met my now-wife and some of her friends, I found this article and it resonated with me.

The actual article is more about “toxic masculinity” and that can be fraught, but the headline — “Men have no friends and women bear the burden”– is very true. I guess maybe it resonated with me at the time because a lot of her friends were hauling off to BabyLand and some of the women were realizing, whoa, maybe my dude here is a little bit broken and doesn’t really have many strong relationships in his life. In fact, he seems to lean on me for virtually everything. Is this sustainable if we get up to three kids?

Ashley, it’s broadly not sustainable. But from a “legacy” standpoint, or a “Joneses” standpoint, what matters is the three kids and the image ye project. So most people just go with it.

There’s a whole narrative about how hard it is for men to make real friendships, and I’ve covered it six or 10 times myself. It’s covered in this clip from Richard Reeves, who is a “big name” in this space: