I know this community recoils at anything that smacks of stereotyping, or generalizing, or assigning any attributes whatsoever to one group over another. That's your privilege.
As a male, who is 55 years old, I've observed certain things over the years that prick my interest...and, indeed, prompt me to ask this question: Are Women just better at friendship than Men are? Is there something about them that make them more likely than men to hold onto friendships over the course of a lifetime, and is there something about men that makes them less likely to do the same?
I know, in my life...just speaking annecdotally, that I have been a poor friend. I wish it weren't true, but it is. This diary is intended to elicit a broader reponse. Accepting the fact that everyone's response will be, as well, annecdotal...
My question is this: Is there a gender difference when it comes to establishing and maintaining longlasting friendships? Men can respond, women can respond, but I especially am curious to hear from long term couples...Look at your spouse, and analyze their friendships. Who has the longest term friends? Men or women? Who puts more effort into nurturing those bonds? Are men or women more careless with friends?
Why?
I've been ver careless with my friends. It pains me to say so, but it's the truth. I have allowed good friends to come and to go, and I put little effort into clinging to them as I should have. As life carried me along, I moved from here to there, and as space and time separated me from guys that once were so central to my social life...I allowed them to dissipate into the fog of distance. I admit this, and feel badly about it...and often times wish I could reach out across the gulf and clasp their hands once again.
But I don't. And neither do they. Both parties are guilty...but still, Calvinist that I am, I place the greater guilt upon me. Is it a man thing?
I look at my sister, my wife and a number of other female friends and see a different thing at work. Unspoken in that statement is the fact that, as I've grown older, my friendships have narrowed to more women than men. So I get to observe them more.
My sister never discards a friend. She may accumulate newer and better friends, butshe never discards an old friend without good reason. She still, at age 60, is in contact with some of her High School friends. Some of them, admittedly, might just be Christmas Cards, but that's more than I can say. I've lost track with everyone of my High School buddies over the years, and not because they turned out, as adults, to be unworthy of friendship. I've similarly lost track with old college buds, and old coworkers who were, in the time, very good friends.
I just allowed circumstances to draw us apart, and never provided any countervailing force.
Sometimes I was too busy focussing on my career, other times too busy focussing on my marriage, and other times just lazy. My experience, however, has been that women are able juggle more balls, without allowing friendships to fall to the ground. I don't know if it's dexterity on their part or single mindedness on ours...but there's a difference.
Is it superficiality? I don't know. Looking back upon friends I have known...I hate to characterize those bonds as being superficial. At the time, they didn't feel that way. But, and again...I'll speak for myself...I've withheld in every relationship I've ever had more than I've ever given, be it with a woman or a man. Perhaps that's a male trait as well.
I'm just wondering...what's everyone else's experience?