Title. Well these days I’ve been feeling lonely, and I feel somewhere male friendships I have aren’t that strong. I’ll be honest, I don’t have many female friends either, but I’ve been particularly felt disappointed by my male peers, especially when it comes to talking emotionally. What are your experiences?
Yeah. I don’t expect anyone to help me with anything. I try my best to be available to people and I have a pretty active social life.
I have dozens of cousins who I’ve known and been friends with since I was born. I have family friends that I have some vague memories of us taking baths together. I have a group of friends I’ve known since middle school (~25 years ago) that probably includes 7 people. I have some friends who I’ve known since college which could be 2 to 15 people depending on how I’m feeling that day. I am still in touch with 5 friends from med school and maybe 4 friends from residency and I’ve got a bunch of friends I’ve developed in the last few years.
Dang, typing that all out made me feel incredibly blessed.
It’s funny, if you ask me most days, I’ll tell you dudes are lame and women are more interesting to talk to, but tbh most of my closest and longest running friendships are with dudes. Dudes just need an activity. They don’t need to talk to each other. The vast majority of my male friendships at least originally centered on some activities like basketball, playing Warhammer 40k, playing video games, being in med school/residency.
As far as being emotionally vulnerable with another man, I think maybe like 3-4 guys in total. I am pretty emotionally closed off. I’m more of a “bust your balls” type of friend.
I had a pretty good cousin group too. Unfortunately, most of us don’t live in the same city anymore. We still call each other, but the prime time is behind us.