{"id":977,"date":"2012-09-06T20:52:46","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T00:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=977"},"modified":"2012-09-06T20:52:46","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T00:52:46","slug":"side-by-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2012\/09\/06\/side-by-side\/","title":{"rendered":"Side by Side"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I had an interesting interaction with two of my male friends today that left me wondering\u2026one was having a day and didn\u2019t want to interact in the normal way these two had established in their relationship.\u00a0 The other didn\u2019t seem to care and bordered on disrespectful by saying now I have to go at you even more.\u00a0 What is that?<\/p>\n

So I decided to ask the one who was having none of it why he acted that way, why did he seem to me to be disrespectful to his\/our friend.\u00a0 I got the standard, that\u2019s how men are routine.\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 So now I\u2019m curious, what does male friendship look like?\u00a0 Not from my point of view because as soon as a female enters the mix another side of men seems to emerge. More on that later.<\/p>\n

In all I\u2019ve read, and that\u2019s not all that much, the difference between male friendships and female friendships can be boiled down, according to a post by Brett and Kate McKay of The Art of Manliness.com, and pictured as two women facing one another, while male friendships can be symbolized as two men standing side by side, looking outwards<\/em>.\u00a0 The irony of that is the two men were seated side by side when this all unfolded.<\/p>\n

It can\u2019t possibly be news to men that the deeper your social connections, the longer and happier you live.\u00a0 Intimate social ties reduce the risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate and cholesterol.\u00a0 People who have the strongest friendship ties over a nine year period cut their risk of death by more than 60% according to one study noted by Deborah Tropp on Askmen.com.\u00a0 The irony of a women posting on Askmen.com is not lost on me.<\/p>\n

So what is male friendship?\u00a0 How did it evolve to the name calling, activity oriented, and no-feeling lack of intimacy thing it\u2019s become?\u00a0 To hear the McKays describe it from heroic (noble and intense and intellectual) to 19th<\/sup> century deep feeling daily interaction filled with sentiment in the style of Theodore Roosevelt perhaps. Then the 20th<\/sup> century transformation to fear of being called gay with sentimentality appearing incompatible with manhood, increased mobility resulting from industrialization and relationship shifts toward shared pursuits and no male role models except those from the military where men (to this day) understand the bond needed to keep one another alive.\u00a0 It screams buddy system.<\/p>\n

So can men have meaningful friendships?\u00a0 Many believe that they can, I believe they can because I\u2019ve spoken with many men who seem to me to be quite deep and feeling and capable of intimacy.\u00a0 The key there is they are talking to me and men usually feel comfortable showing that side of themselves to women.\u00a0 After all, it\u2019s one of our greatest attributes. \u00a0We know how to outwardly do friendship.<\/p>\n

So what does a man to man friendship look like?\u00a0 In all their name calling (hey jackass, apparently a form of endearment) they know how to show up.\u00a0 They don\u2019t show up ready to listen necessarily although it\u2019s been known to happen, they show up ready to support one another in sport, they understand loyalty, they are straight forward and can assist their friends in moving on, they are non-judgmental.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure women understand these things but do they have to?\u00a0 Our friendships work for us, theirs work for them.\u00a0 When they need something else from friendship, like say expressing emotion, they will turn to their wives (if they have them), girlfriends (if they are past the stage of having to prove themselves) or women like me who are just there to listen with an open heart to their friends who need to say it out loud.\u00a0 I know like I know that men have a thing or two to learn from women but I also know they\u2019ve got each other\u2019s back when it comes right down to it.<\/p>\n

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I had an interesting interaction with two of my male friends today that left me wondering\u2026one was having a day and didn\u2019t want to interact in the normal way these two had established in their relationship.\u00a0 The other didn\u2019t seem … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pause-points"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-fL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=977"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":980,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions\/980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}