The differences between friendships between men and women – 07/20/2023 – Equilibrium

How many friends do we have? How good or close are they? How do we choose the men and women who will be our friends? What do we privilege? How long-lasting are these friendships?

The famous British psychologist, anthropologist, and evolutionary biologist Robin Dunbar, professor emeritus at the University of Oxford, has spent years studying friendship.

A specialist in primate behavior, he is best known for being the first to formulate the so-called Dunbar number, with a value corresponding to 150 in humans, a number that represents a measure of “the cognitive limit of individuals with whom a stable relationship can be maintained.”

Author of more than twenty books, including “Friendship”, “The Science of Love” and “The Odyssey of Humanity”, he was interviewed by BBC News Mundo (BBC Spanish service) about the differences between male and female friendships and what is true in the stereotypes that are generally attributed to them.

You say friendships between men and women are different. What are these differences?
They differ mainly by the intensity of their relationships.

Friendships between women tend to be much more emotionally intense, making them more dyadic (two people who end up bonded very closely).

Their friendship circles are based more on dual friendships than groups, while men tend to form friend clubs.

In general, women’s friendships are similar to a center-and-spoke model, where each friend has a particular friendship with the friend at the center, but not necessarily with the other friends in a small group.

Whereas men’s circles are much more integrated.

Everyone is everyone’s friend, but the quality and intensity of relationships are lower.

What do women and men look for in a friendship? what is the most important?
For women, it’s more important who you are as a person, not what you are.

While men care much more about what you are, what club you belong to.

They care less about who you are.

Friendships between men are a little more anonymous in this sense.

How would you say these clubs are friends?
In them, the fact of belonging to the club seems to be the most important thing. It is what defines friendship.

Many men know very little about their friends, but they accept them because they are part of the same club.

Buddy clubs tend to be very informal and this reflects the much more casual nature of male friendships.

Club membership is also often casual.

It’s the friends who play football together or the guys who go drinking every Friday night.

Eligibility for membership in a club is not very demanding.

Can you have a beer without spilling it on the table? If you can do that then you are part of our club.

It is said that women tend to talk more about their emotions and feelings. what men speak?You’re welcome (laughs).

Men do not talk so much about emotions, they tend to relate around activities, unlike women, who express feelings. This is why women tend to have higher quality friendships.

The activities in the groups of friends are what give the club its character.

In this context, men create bonds of friendship through laughter, while women do so through conversations and emotions.

That is why women can tell exactly what they talked about yesterday, in detail and background, while men who were sitting at the same table cannot remember anything.

So would you say that men need a physical presence more, a physically present friend?
Yes, men need to be able to do things with their friends. They have to see them. If they don’t see them, the relationship evaporates. Not always, of course, but it happens often.

Friendships between women tend to last over time, even when they can’t see each other regularly because they make the effort to talk or stay in touch.

These things are less frequent among men.

That’s not to say that male friendships don’t last; some can last longer than friendships between women.

But if a woman’s friend moves to another country forever and they can’t see each other, they try to keep the friendship through social media or over the phone.

And men lose a friend who moves…
Men often do not maintain regular contact with the departed friend, but simply replace him.

For example, Jimmy is a friend group member who goes to the bar for drinks every Friday night, but has moved to Thailand.

Instead of trying to keep in touch with Jimmy, the other friends say to each other, “Well, Jimmy was great, but he’s gone. I know Peter would be a great fit, we can add him to the group now that Jimmy’s gone.”

This is changing over the years.

After a certain age, some men prefer to leave the club and stay with a single friend with whom they go drinking at the bar very calmly.

They become best friends.

Is communication still bad?
Probably many still aren’t having many deep conversations.

There is a wonderful photograph, often seen in newspapers and magazines, of two old Greeks outside a tavern, sitting on either side of a table while the sun is shining.

They sit quietly and occasionally lift their ouzo (Greek liqueur) or their coffee to take a small sip.

I always say: this is the image of two men communicating.

Would you say that men are socially lazier?
For sure. Many older men end up belonging to the husbands’ club of their wives’ friends, or their partners, and that’s because women are so much more socially active.

They are more likely than we are to organize social events, be it dinner or whatever.

Sometimes the men who attend (the wives’ events) form their own club, but the only thing that holds it together is the fact that they are the women’s husbands or partners.

It’s completely circumstantial.

How important is it to have friends when you get older?
Here we can go to the reasons why we have friends.

One of them is to have moral and social support, and help if we need it.

Good friends end up becoming a kind of protection and can even be an economic buffer.

Furthermore, friendships provide really considerable health benefits.

The best way to measure your physical and psychological health is to see the number and quality of good friends you have.

The ideal number is you and four friends, according to several studies.

Is this number close friends or friends in general?
Close friends, but includes family as well.

As we age, we tend to prioritize family.

It is also said to improve mental health.
On the psychological side, it greatly reduces the risk of falling into depression.

The activities we do with friends, talking, laughing, telling sad stories, singing, dancing, eating… all these things activate the endorphin system, which is activated in the part of the brain that controls pain.

They give you an emotional high that makes you feel good, at peace with the world, confident.

When you fall into depression, your immune system is depressed and you are much more susceptible to illnesses, particularly viruses and bacteria, because your body is unable to effectively attack them.

In the end, when you have few or no friends, your life expectancy suffers.

This text was published here