Men vs. Women in the Super Bowl of friendship. Who are the winners?

Well, actually – we both are even though the rules are completely different. In fact, the game barely looks the same but the outcome and winners are still as important.

Women, as we’ve learned from books like The Tending Instinct by Shelley E. Taylor, and others, are bonded to each other through vital strong social ties. Our friendships make us healthier, happier, less stressed, live longer and feel more beautiful.

For example: Although men generally are most resistant to marriage, they have the most to gain as men who marry, live longer than those who don’t. Women, however, live the same amount whether they marry or not. And their strong social bonds (aka: female friendship) can impact their longevity. So, women, hang out with your girlfriends and your life will be better.

Also noted in this book is how our friendships differ. Women are quite comfortable just casually being around their friends. We don’t need an agenda, goal or sometimes even any plans – we just like that time near our friends and are content to walk, talk, eat, watch TV or even sit in silence and read – together.

So, in the Super Bowl of friendship – who wins? Read the following info and you decide (and comment below!)

Does one gender have it over the other when it comes to being close?

By: Karen Karbo

Though sharing defines close friendships, there’s a noted gender divide in the way people express intimacy. It was some years ago that researchers documented what any perceptive wife had already observed during televised play-offs (pick your sport, it hardly matters): Her husband invited over his friends and there they sat, shoulder to shoulder, absorbed in the game. After the game was over, they indulged in some armchair quarterbacking, and then the friends left. In other words, men conducted their friendships by doing something, and when they talked to each other, preferred topics like cars or sports rather than themselves. Women conducted friendships by sharing information about themselves, their emotions, and their relationships. Women related “face-to-face” and men related “side-to-side.”

These differences are just as true today. My ex-husband could be the poster child for the prototypical male friend.

He’s maintained good friendships with guys he met in ninth grade and can talk endlessly on the phone with them about whatever computer game is their current obsession. They can spend hours sharing information about the biggest monster defeated or their new avatar without once mentioning their personal lives, careers, health, or state of mind.

Does one gender have it over the other when it comes to being close? Experts disagree. Barbara J. Bank, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-Columbia, writing with Suzanne Hanford in the journal Personal Relationships, contends that men’s friendships are indeed less intimate and supportive than are women’s. Theorists acknowledge that intimacy is crucial to friendship and that talking about one’s life (or, as a male friend of mine jokingly calls it, “the dreaded sharing”) is more likely to facilitate intimacy than something like sharing computer game tips.

Sociologist Scott Swain, on the other hand, says the male version of intimacy is powerful, too. Swain has coined the term “closeness in the doing” to describe the intimacy men achieve when they do stuff with their pals, be it drinking, backpacking, or rebuilding their car engines. In the mode of Ben Franklin, men express intimacy by helping each other: assisting with investment advice or lending tools. Male affection has been called “covert”—razzing and backslapping, indirect signs of intimacy, may be quintessential expressions of brotherly love.

Psychology Today: Men, Women, and Friendship.

Thoughts? Who do you think has stronger friendships – men or women? Why? Examples?

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Be a Better FRIEND. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.