Men Are From Mars, Women Make Friends

_{When the road looks rough ahead
And you’re miles and miles from your nice warm bed
Just remember what your old pal said
Boy, you’ve got a friend in me}

_{Randy Newman}

Everybody wants friends.

In addition to being an antidote to modern society’s loneliness epidemic, researchers claim that 70% of personal happiness can be attributed to enormous sums of money the “number of friends, closeness of friends, closeness of family, and relationships with co-workers and neighbors.”

Yet, various surveys have indicated that the percentage of U.S. adults who report having no close friends is somewhere between 12% and 17%.

Yikes!

Apparently, the difficulty in making friends increases as we age, and especially after we retire.

Making friends was easy when we were young, whether at school, through sports and clubs, or because our mothers paid people to be our friends.

At some point, demanding jobs, families, living far away, and other responsibilities sucked up all of our time and attention and the connection with friends got tougher.

In retirement, we do not see work colleagues every day, or meet parents of our kids friends at sporting and musical activities, so connections get even harder.

There are many “experts” telling us how to make new friends.

Some say creating “ritual” through shared activities such as book clubs is a good strategy. My wife, Robin, is in a book club that started 35 years ago and now meets on Zoom.

I am not in a book club. Why are most men not in book clubs? Some of us can read. My friend Eric claims that golf is a book club for guys but I do not play golf and, no, I do not play poker either.

One strategy proposed by Sarah Todd on Lifestyle is to use the “Golden Retriever Technique,” where you act like the friendliest dog in the world, who is happy to see you and does not worry whether you are happy to see them, and bounces around to show their appreciation.

When implemented by a man in his late 60’s, this approach can veer dangerously close to stalking.

Besides, when I tried it I kept slobbering over my new friends and shedding on their furniture.

The problem is not just being old or retired. No, the problem may run deeper.

I believe, as a longtime member of the male gender, that the problem is being a man.

In a New York Times Magazine article last year, Sam Graham-Felson posited the theory that “men in this country suck at friendship.”

How did he prove this?

Simple. He quoted the comedian John Mulaney who said “Your dad has no friends. If you think your dad has friends, you’re wrong. Your mom has friends, and they have husbands. Those are not your dad’s friends.”

Now, that should be proof enough, but this is science so I needed to delve deeper.

I did a detailed analysis and discovered that Robin has made way more friends than me in retirement.

Now, it is quite possible that nothing is going on here other than that nobody wants to be my friend but …

I retired two or three years before Robin since she loved her work and I, well, I was a lawyer. Enough said.

We moved to New York’s Hudson Valley and joked that my job as the first to retire was to make friends in our new home.

I have failed miserably.

I started volunteering on the newsletter (what were they thinking?) of a self-run “Lifetime Learning Institute (LLI)” at a local college and have now graduated to being President of the group.

Groucho Marx said he would never join a club that would have him as a member - - what should I say about a club that would have me as President!!?

Sure, I have some volunteer buddies, but I have not made any deep friendships.

On the other hand, Robin that competitive show off retired last year and already has lady friends galore; a scrabble group, a group that gets together to write postcards to voters, other members of the LLI.

And, she may even have another book club in the oven.

What is going on here?

Mr. Graham-Felson thinks that there are “many unspoken, byzantine bylaws to male friendship, and there’s an ever-present, low-level fear of running afoul of them.”

These bylaws for the most part involve not showing your feelings. They were easier to overcome when we were young and saw our friends every day, but now they keep us in our shrinking universes.

This does not have to be the case. I set up fairly regular “phone hangs” with my college friend Joe since we live in different states, but I know that I have lost touch with so many others.

We often use the excuse that not showing feelings is evolutionary.

In prehistoric times, we had to go out and catch Mastodons and avoid sabretooth tigers, while women were busy raising families, nurturing our young, and planning additions to our caves.

Supposedly, that aggressive, too tough to show feelings nature remains in our DNA and our culture expects that men meet certain macho societal standards of maleness.

Although we have not caught any Mastodons lately, now we sponsor UFC fights on our front lawns while women are in book clubs.

Male heads of state start wars while women leaders are more likely to look for a diplomatic solution. Except Margaret Thatcher. And my mother. My mother once seized the Strait of Hormuz.

Half of the Cabinet feels the need to send pictures of themselves on Instagram doing push-ups and pull-ups.

Men have duels. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Andrew Jackson and anyone he could find.

Can you name one woman who has had a duel? And Daenerys Targaryen does not count. She had a dragon.

According to a recent New York Times Book Review, Edgar Allan Poe once challenged the editor of The Richmond Examiner to a duel but Poe showed up too drunk to fight. The two instead went off to a local tavern and became lifelong friends.

This may open up a whole new avenue for starting male friendships, although if too sober it may end up a little bloody.

Mr. Graham-Felson says men have a lifetime of friendships and they just need to reconnect and stay in touch. Send a text or an email or, gulp, pick up the telephone.

I have taken that to heart lately and have tried to reach out more to old friends.

And what about making new friends?

I am trying to emulate Robin who, when she feels that she connects with someone new, makes sure to follow up and see if it leads to a real friendship.

Sounds a lot saner than my golden retriever approach.

Anyone want to join a book club???

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