Psychology Today: Why Are Male and Female Friendships So Different?

“The research on who we become friends with falls very much in line with common sense. We are more likely to become friends with people who are trustworthy, similar to us, and who live physically close to us. We also prefer friends who are fun to hang out with and friends who like us about as much as we like them.”

“Researchers have found that changes in friendships usually accompany major life transitions such as going away to college or getting married, but if a friendship can weather these forks in the road it can help buffer the stress of life changes. In fact, friends are mentioned in studies more frequently as sources of happiness than are family, religion, or success in one’s career.”

“Cross-culturally, men tend to report having a larger number of friends, but less intimate ones, than women. Women are also more likely than men to explicitly discuss the closeness of their relationships with their friends, more likely to identify someone as a “best friend,” and they also more easily distinguish “close friends” from people who are “just a friend.” Men generally seem to use the word “friend” more loosely than women, and they also tend to expect less from friendships than women do.” Research (and accompanying studies) have also shown that men tend to prefer friends that have wealth, status, as well as helping them find new mating opportunities. Women, on the other hand, are shown to value friends who are more apt to provide emotional support. Also, they value friends who help them keep a pre-existing mate.

“Why would men and women have different agendas when they are looking for friends? The answer may lie in our evolutionary past.

“It is believed that the day-to-day lives of men and women could be quite different in early human groups. Men traveled in groups more often than women as they hunted and engaged in raids, while women tended to stay closer to home, gathering food and supplies and caring for children.”

“Consequently, men came to value other men who were physically intimidating and skillful hunters and warriors. This may help to explain the lingering popularity that so often accrues to male high school and college athletes.”

“Women, on the other hand, were often removed from the kinship group that they were born into because of “patrilocality,” which was the common practice of women leaving home to join their male partner’s tribe. To successfully negotiate this challenge, women had to be quite astute in judging the character of potential friends. They should especially value friends who would be nurturing, trustworthy, and loyal. It would be important for the friends to be emotionally supportive and also for them to be a reliable source of information about the norms and politics of the new group.”

This article was an interesting read for me, in more ways than one. The information itself was provocative, but I also noted my personal life as a male to be somewhat of an outlier to the article’s research and conclusions. While I have definitely accrued many acquaintances in my life, I have also been fortunate enough that my friend circle has been fairly intimate–as evidenced by the conversations that we have on the regular. That said, I do recognize that by in large, male and female relationships *are* different; this article did a great job of illustrating why that tends to be the case.

Read the full article here.

#Friendships #Male #Female