In part III I will get to non romantic relationships between men and women, but in this portion of my series I am going to talk about male friendships. If I wanted to cover all of the bases, I would write a post about female friendships, but since I am not a female I feel like that would be rather presumptuous. Instead, I am going to be doing all of my writing from a male standpoint, and this post is going to be dedicated to looking at love and friendships between men and how our society has destroyed and contorted their image.
I am most certainly a "straight" guy, but I will not hesitate for a minute to admit that I dearly love my close male friends. Doppelganger Otter, The Near Sighted One, Captain Corgi, and Colonel Raymond in particular are some of my closest and most reliable allies. I trust them, I can depend on them, I care about them and their well being, and I often turn to them for advice and support. The Doppelganger Otter is named thus because we joke that we personalities split from the same person. These men, along with many others I am proud to call my friends, are people I would die for and who I know I could count on to stand up for me if I needed them to. I know that they would do so for me because we love each other.
Our society hasn't completely disregarded the idea that two men can be close without being homosexual, but people still seem far too hasty in classifying two men as being gay simply because they are close. I may be wrong here, but it certainly seems like close, emotionally intimate friendships between women are regarded as perfectly normal while friendships of a similar kinds between guys are often viewed with skepticism or stereotyping. If you actually look at the kinds of conversations I have with the guys I mentioned above (especially The Near Sighted One), girls and our relationships with them is probably our number one topic of discussion.
Even though it is typically true that men are significantly less touchy feely than the average woman, we still do have feelings, thoughts, and opinions and about emotional subjects, and it is helpful to talk about those things with other guys a lot of the time. Guys are typically looked down upon for now being manly, however, if they open up and share their feelings at all, and if they go to another guy for more personal/emotional conversations then the chances seem pretty high that the community at large is going to make assumptions about them that are not necessarily true at all.
Unfortunately, I see the fear of being labeled as being gay serving as an obstacle that prevents guys from comfortably establishing close friendships with their male companions. Guys that are not homosexual seem to feel the need to prove their masculinity by being aggressive, competitive, and dominating. Friendships between men under that kind of a scenario are not likely to be anything beyond shallow acquaintances, and if men can't learn how to open up and interact with each other then learning how to do so with women is just going to be all the more challenging.
The modern view of masculinity turns men into solitary, unfeeling robots of pent up emotion. Men are typically viewed as insensitive, oblivious, and inconsiderate, but how can you expect them to ever learn how to treat other people decently if they are unable to open up to their male peers for fear of being labeled as something they are not?
Strong, open, and loving friendships allow us to think beyond ourselves and develop more care and compassion for other people, and that can most certainly start between individuals of the same gender, especially during the early teenage years when our personalities are undergoing massive development and we're typically terrified of anyone in the opposite sex. Strong male friendships can actually train guys to be more sensitive and considerate of women simply because they teach us how to think about other people, their thoughts, their feelings, and their opinions.
On top of that, it typically isn't particularly easy for a guy to go to a girl when he's messed up something or made a mistake and needs consolation. It certainly impossible or unheard of, but in my experience, it feels pretty humiliating to have your female friends know about your errors a lot more than it does to 'fess up to another guy. If a guy doesn't have a close friend he can vent with and work through things with, he is going to pent it all up inside and it is going to eat away at him.
Really, young men need other young men as close friends, because it actually makes them stronger, better people and doesn't at all deteriorate their masculinity. Doppelganger Otter, Near Sighted One, Captain Corgi, Colonel Raymond and my other masculine friends help me to a better man, and do a lot to help teach me how to be a better man for my female friends as well. As cheesy as it sounds, we do belong to a brotherhood of guys that can trust, depend, and build on each other. It is a brotherhood founded on love, respect, compassion, and personal knowledge of each other.
I have never been in the military, but it certainly seems like men who have been understand this whole concept a lot better than the rest of our society. Removed from their homes, their family, and their loved ones, men in the military must depend on each other, their brothers in arms, not only for combat support but for all of their emotional and mental support as well. I've watched a few documentaries about submarine crews, and those men develop a firm love and trust among each other based on the fact that without each other they'd go insane.
We may not be trapped in a metal capsule under the ocean, but if we, as men, are not able to open ourselves up our brothers and hide from the friendships and companionship we desperately need, we are isolating ourselves in our own internal, emotionless capsules, we will drive ourselves mad. We become the same insensitive, inconsiderate, and often violent men that seem to dominate so much of the male population in my generation.
I love my male friends, and I'm not afraid or ashamed to admit it. When my future wife and I get married, I will have no lack of potential groomsmen to choose from.
It is interesting reading this from a female's point of view. Throughout most of my life I've had less than a handful of very close friends. More often than not, my closest friend was male and it was not a romantic relationship whatsoever. Also, I have had many male friends that feel more comfortable sharing personal and embarrassing things with close female friends than with other guys. This is usually because they "don't want to look weak in front of the guys". I find it so interesting that you have had experience with almost the exact opposite. I believe it's due to the gender stereotypes each group of people grew up learning.
ReplyDeleteIn my case, I just think that girls are notorious for gossip and judgement while my extremely close male friends are more open to new ideas and have less bias in situations. I can't say this is true in all situations but it is in mine at least.
By the way, I call dibs on a toast at such an auspicious event as a Iggy wedding... (:
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